Maine DUI Defense Law Blog

A couple of days ago I posted a blog about firearms possession in national parks and the shooting in Mt. Rainier National Park.  In that case a gunman, Benjamin Colton Barnes, fled to the park after shooting several people in a nearby city.  Once in the park he shot a ranger, Margaret Anderson.  In the aftermath people suggested that this tragedy was a reason to outlaw firearms in national parks, even if the person having the firearm has a legal concealed weapons permit.  I disagreed.  My argument was that Barnes was a criminal.  He was intentionally breaking very serious laws.  A law making it illegal to have weapons in the park would not have stopped him from taking his guns into the park and shooting the ranger.  I further argued that civilians in the park would have been safer if they were armed.  Today I want to talk about three incidents that highlight my point.

The first incident is related to the Rainier shooting.  Once rangers knew there was an armed and dangerous criminal in the park they went out to round up civilians camping in the park.  A helicopter came across a group of campers and dropped them notes written on coffee cups.  The first note warned the campers of the shooter and ordered them to move to a safe location.  The second note told them the helicopter would escort them as far as road, but they were not to try to drive out “without an armed escort.”  Imagine being in the campers’ situation.  As I think about it I would sure want to be able to be my own armed escort.

The second incident occurred a couple of years ago, in July 2007.  Jennifer Hawke-Petit was shopping in a middle class suburban area with her two daughters, Michaela (17) and Haley (11).  Unknown to her, she was spotted by Joshua Komisarjevsky who followed them home.  Komisarjevsky left.  Later he and a friend, Stephen Hayes, returned to the Hawke-Petit home.  They broke into the house at 3 AM.  They beat the father, Dr. Petit, with a baseball bat, tied him up and threw him in the basement.  They raped Michaela.  They raped Haley.  They raped Jennifer.  Six hours laterhey took Jennifer to the bank and made her take out money for them.  When they returned to the house they strangled Jennifer.  They tied Michaela and Haley to their beds.  They poured gasoline around the girls and set the house on fire.  They fled.  The father survived.  The two animals were caught fleeing the scene.  The Hawke-Petit family was unarmed.

Compare the Hawke-Petit tragedy to an incident that happened yesterday in Grady County, Oklahoma.  Sarah McKinley is 18.  She has a three-month old son.  On Christmas Day her husband died of lung cancer.  A drug addict, Justin Shane Martin, heard about his death and decided Sarah might have some of her husband’s drugs in the house.  He got his friend, Dustin Louis Stewart, to help him rob her. The two took some narcotics and went to her mobile home.  They tried to break in.  Sarah pushed a couch in front of the door and retreated to the bedroom with her baby.  She called 911.  She asked for help.  20 minutes after her call the police had not arrived, but the two thugs managed to break down the door.  Martin had a knife in his hand and went into the home.  Sarah shot him with a shotgun and killed him.  Stewart fled the scene.

If Barnes had come across the hikers and they were unarmed, there might have been a tragedy in park.  If Sarah McKinley had been unarmed, there would have been a tragedy in Oklahoma.  The Hawke-Petit family was unarmed and there was a serious tragedy there.

I am not suggesting that buying a gun makes you safer.  If you don’t know how to use a firearm and have one, you may be in more danger from accidental shooting. If you have a firearm it is your duty to learn how to use it.  There are lots of firearms handling and safety courses out there.  I am not suggesting that everyone who buys a guns should be able to carry it in a national park.   What I am saying is that a firearm in the hands of a trained person can make the difference between life and death for that person and his or her family. A trained and properly licensed concealed weapons permit holder should be able to carry firearms anywhere, including national parks.

Clearly the police cannot be there every minute.  There are predators out there. We have a right to defend ourselves.  Let us defend ourselves.

In yesterday’s paper there was an article about a shooting in Mt. Rainier National Park.  There was a tragedy in the park.  A young man, believed to be Benjamin Colton Barnes,  had severe mental problems – possibly PTSD from service in Iraq.  He shot several people near Seattle on New year’s Eve.  He may also have been involved in another shooting incident that night.  On New Year’s Day Barnes he fled to Mt. Rainier National Park.

Park police had a checkpoint set up to make sure people had chains because of the snowy conditions in the park.  Someone blew through that checkpoint.  One of the rangers followed that person.  Another ranger, Margaret Anderson, set up a roadblock to stop the person who ran the checkpoint.  As she was getting out of a vehicle she was shot and killed.  Police believe Barnes was the shooter.  Barnes was later found dead in the Park.  The cause of death is believed to be hypothermia – he was  found in a snowy stream in a T-shirt and jeans.

Before Barnes was found dead, rangers had rounded up all of the park visitors and evacuated them.  They were afraid for their safety.  Afraid that Barnes would try to kidnap or harm some of them.

According to the Associated Press, “the shooting has renewed debate about a federal law that made it legal for people to take loaded weapons into national parks.”  That’s crazy!  Make no mistake, the shooting of a law enforcement officer – in this case also a mother of two children – is a tragedy.  But that tragedy is not a reason to pass a foolish law.

Why is the law foolish?  Well, let’s see.  Right now the law says that people who legally hold concealed weapons permits can carry those concealed weapons in a National Park.  Does anyone really think that Ranger Anderson would be alive if that law did not exist?  Does anyone really think that Barnes, after illegally shooting four people and maybe more,  would get to the boundary of the national park and say, “Oh my, it’s illegal to have a loaded gun here.  I better leave mine behind.”  If you think that is likely, I bet you believe in the tooth fairy, too!

Outlawing guns in the park would not have made anyone safer that weekend.  It might, however, have made people less safe.  I’ll bet you some of those park visitors were lawfully carrying concealed weapons.  (I have an CW permit, and I carry mine when I visit Acadia National Park. I can’t imagine I am the only one.)  Those people who were armed were safer than those who were not.  Moreover, it is possible that Barnes knew the folks in the park might be armed, and maybe he avoided them because of that knowledge.  If the law were in effect, the only unarmed civilians in the park would have been the law-abiding ones. Easy pickings for predators.

There is a saying in law that hard cases make bad law.  What than means is that politicians and voters often have knee jerk reactions to tragic situations.  They want to pass a law that will prevent the tragedy.  Often they pass overbroad laws that don’t prevent those tragedies.  In this case, we know that criminals sometimes go to national parks and shoot people.  It is a pretty god bet that people who are armed stand a better chance of not being shot by criminals.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that criminals are less likely to attack people they believe to be armed.

So the last thing we should do is make it illegal for law abiding citizens to carry weapons where they can come into contact with armed criminals.  This is especially true where those citizens have been checked by police and meet the requirements for carrying a concealed weapon.

There should be no debate here.  Changing the law would not have helped Ranger Anderson.  I might have endangered park visitors.  Don’t let a hard case make bad law.