GUNS: Objective outlooks needed

Before $100 a barrel oil prices made it unaffordable, the bride and I enjoyed hooking onto our fifth wheel RV each fall and joining our fellow snowbirds on the open road south. Like many of our fellow travelers, we exercised our Second Amendment Right and, for our own safety and peace of mind, carried a firearm inside our winter home on wheels.

One of the perks U.S. citizens acquire upon reaching the ripe old age of three score and two is the right to a Golden Age Passport. This lifetime permit allows the holder free admission to all federal parks and recreation facilities and a 50 percent discount on use fees such as camping within those facilities. Exploring our national treasures became one of our favorite activities.

Even so, we experienced a guilt-laden dilemma each time we entered one of these facilities. Somewhere outside the gate a small sign stating that federal law prohibited the possession of firearms inside the gate would be posted. No instructions as to what to do with firearms you happened to have with you were provided. The choice seemed to be either figure out how to dispose of your gun on your own or break the law. Faced with that "Catch-22," we chose to break the law and kept our gun hidden in a secret compartment.

Thus, we welcomed the news in 2010 that the ban on firearms inside federal parks and recreation areas had been repealed. We could use our Golden Age Passport and still stay on the right side of the law.

Fast forward. On New Years Day 2012, a tragedy occurred up in Mt. Rainier National Park. Some idiot blew through a park ranger checkpoint and then shot and killed park ranger Margaret Anderson when she tried to stop him. This was a genuine regional tragedy and was duly reported by The Press with an account written by A.P. writer Mike Baker. This account described the events leading up to the shooting, the actual shooting and events following the shooting with apparent accuracy. However, it then lost its objectivity and became agenda driven in its final paragraphs.

The lack of objectivity starts with, "The shooting renewed debate about a federal law that made it legal for people to take loaded weapons into national parks." The author does not identify who is debating, but instead states that "Bill Wade, the outgoing chair of the National Park Service Retirees, said Congress should be regretting its decision... Wade called Sunday's fatal shooting a tragedy that could have been prevented."

Wait just a minute there Bill. Are you trying to tell us that a sign prohibiting guns inside Mt. Rainier National Park would have stopped this mad dog? Do you suppose he would have stopped, read the sign and meekly turned around?

Or could it be that someone is using this horrific event to push a political agenda?

BOB LaRUE

Hauser