The Bush administration on Friday finalized a rule allowing loaded, concealed weapons in national parks.

Assistant Interior Secretary Lyle Laverty said the rule would allow individuals with concealed-weapons permits to carry a loaded, concealed weapon in a national park as long as the park is in the state that issued the permit. The rule is expected to go into effect in early January.

“The department believes that in managing parks and refuges we should, as appropriate, make every effort to give the greatest respect to the democratic judgements of state legislatures with respect to concealed firearms,” Laverty said in a statement.

Friday’s announcement drew condemnation from a wide range of conservation groups that say the existing law, which allows firearms in parks as long as they are locked away, broken down and unloaded, works fine.

Scot McElveen, president of the Association of National Park Rangers, worries that allowing guns in parks will lead to more poaching incidents.

“We’ve been opposed to it from the very beginning,” he said. “We don’t really believe that the administration’s argument squares with the potential damage to resources, specifically wildlife resources in parks like Grand Teton and Yellowstone.”

Grand Teton National Park officials do allow hunters to carry rifles inside park boundaries during the park’s elk hunt each fall.

McElveen, who served as a park ranger for 25 years, said he’s arrested poachers who succumbed to the temptation of shooting a trophy animal. Others, he said, shot at “varmints.”

“They never came into the park intending to kill an animal that day,” he said. “They just couldn’t resist. There’s a large group [of people] that can be tempted by circumstance.”

Some argue they need weapons in parks to protect themselves against wildlife, an assertion McElveen does not support. In wildlife conflicts with animals such as grizzly bears, having a firearm could actually put a person more at risk than if they used bear spray, McElveen said.

“All the research that I’ve seen shows that the sprays are more effective than any [single-shot] gun would ever be,” he said. 

McElveen said his group would consider joining a lawsuit against the rule, which he said violates the National Environmental Policy Act.

If nothing else, he said an injunction against the rule would make it easier for President-elect Obama’s administration to abolish the rule later.

“If it doesn’t actually get implemented, it’s much easier for the incoming administration to take off the table,” he said.

McElveen also pointed out that national parks currently experience a violent crime rate of 1.65 per 100,000 visitors, making them some of the safest places in the country.

Bill Wade, chair of the executive council of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, called guns in parks a “terrible regulation.” 

“National parks were set aside to be different from other lands,” he said. “The promulgation of this rule makes parks just a little less special. Parks ought to be places where people don’t have to worry about that sort of thing.”

Louise Lasley, public lands director for the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, agreed.

“It has always been my belief that our national park system provides a refuge for, not only wildlife, but also visitors, whether they are individuals or families,” she said. “I believe this decision, rather than making those with guns in our parks safer, puts the rest of us and our treasured wildlife at greater risk.”

Bob Wharff, executive director of Wyoming Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, said the new rule makes sense.

“I think the Second Amendment right is just as important as free speech,” he said. “If it’s restoring those rights that shouldn’t have been taken from us, I guess it’s a good thing. It’s a personal decision. I think you should have the right to choose.”

Wharff said he didn’t think increased poaching would be a problem.

“I don’t think that’s the monster in the closet that some people try and portray it to be,” he said.

Forty-eight states allow concealed weapons, including Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. Wisconsin, Illinois and the District of Columbia do not allow individuals to carry concealed weapons.

Seventy-one percent of people who submitted comments on guns and parks opposed the rule change. 

The final rule goes further than an earlier proposed regulation that would have allowed concealed weapons in parks within the boarders of the 25 states that allow concealed weapons in state parks.