By MATTHEW DALY – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly half the Senate is pushing the Bush administration to let gun owners carry handguns and other firearms into national parks and wildlife refuges.

Forty-seven lawmakers have signed a letter asking Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to lift Reagan-era restrictions that prevent citizens from carrying readily accessible firearms onto lands managed by the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Current regulations, developed in the early 1980s, "infringe on the rights of law-abiding gun owners who wish to transport and carry firearms on or across these lands," the senators wrote.

The policies also differ from those of some other federal agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service. "These inconsistencies in firearms regulations for public lands are confusing, burdensome and unnecessary," said the letter, drafted by Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho.

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This didn't want to post last time, I'll try again

I hike quite a bit during the summer, and always found this law to be a little silly. I can carry in the national forest, and just about every other hiking area in the state, but no national parks. I'm not a poacher, the gun I carry isn't really a hunting weapon. The parks claim you don't have to worry about animal attacks, but give out pamphlets on how to act when one happens. Of course there is a ranger nearby right...ha. I'm all for keeping poachers out, but let's let folks protect themselves in the park like they can everywhere else that you can hike in this state.

Norm