When Misguided Belief In Magic Regarding Guns Overcomes Rational Thinking

Apparently the chairman of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees believes in magic against all rational experience and logic, at least when it is applied to the mere existence of regulations preventing criminal activity.

The Detroit News: Park slaying revives gun arguments

The fatal shooting of a National Park Service ranger at Mount Rainier National Park has renewed debate about a nearly 2-year-old federal law that allows loaded weapons in national parks.

The outgoing chairman of a national organization of park service retirees said Congress should be regretting its decision.

The law let licensed gun owners take firearms into national parks and wildlife refuges as long as they are allowed by state law. Guns are allowed in all but about 20 of the park service's 392 locations, from Yellowstone to Yosemite.

Before 2010, firearms at Mount Rainier were required to be temporarily inoperable or put away so they weren't easily accessible.

Sunday's fatal shooting of park ranger Margaret Anderson could have been prevented, said Bill Wade, a former superintendent of Shenandoah National Park, just outside Washington, D.C., who started his career as a professional ranger at Mount Rainier.

Seriously?

Does Mr. Wade really believe that a criminal that had just shot and wounded 4 people and was fleeing capture would immediately comply with the old Park Service Regulations to disassemble and unload his firearm upon entering the Park?

You know, the same scum that violated yet another regulation by blowing through the vehicle roadblock the Park Service had setup to ensure snow chains were on his car, in the process of which he shot and killed Park Ranger Margaret Anderson who was operating the checkpoint?

Apparently, only some regulations are magical enough to cause criminals to comply with them and could have prevented such a tragedy.

To believe that Ranger Margaret Anderson's death in the line of duty could really have been prevented by trusting that a regulation regarding the transportation of firearms would be followed by a violent fleeing felon is not only a disservice to her memory but also a shameful act of using her death to advance a time-worn and provably wrong agenda.