Just returned from 4 days in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. It now is legal to carry concealed in national parks as long as the state where the park is allows concealed carry and that this state recognizes your CHL. Most of Yellowstone is in Wyoming, where my CHL is recognized, so I was able to carry.
HOWEVER, just as in my home state, individual businesses can post signs banning guns on their premises. In Yellowstone, most of the lodgings, restaurants, gift shops and other amenities are run by a company called Xanterra Parks and Resorts, which holds a concession to do so from the National Park Service. At many of the facilities run by Xanterra, guns are prohibited by a sign at the entrances. So you can travel outdoors throughout the park carrying concealed, but the moment you enter one of the Yellowstone hotels or restaurants, you're expected to surrender your right to self defense.
Under federal law, the same applies in federal facilities in the parks, such as the various visitor centers.
The irony of this was particularly evident at the Visitor's Center at Mammoth Hot Springs. The familiar sign on the front door bans firearms, but inside, the exhibits lovingly display a variety of -- you guessed it -- guns! The exhibits are about the official expeditions that explored the park and include the equipment carried by members of the expeditions, including their weapons, such as these:
Clearly, these are weapons of self-defense, and park officials believe that there is value in displaying them. Yet the point seems lost on them that self defense is as vital today as it was back then.
It is a crime that a company that works for U.S. taxpayers and accepts taxpayer money should be hostile to the right of those taxpayers to exercise their Second Amendment rights inside facilities that those taxpayers paid for and own. The federal law that bars carrying
HOWEVER, just as in my home state, individual businesses can post signs banning guns on their premises. In Yellowstone, most of the lodgings, restaurants, gift shops and other amenities are run by a company called Xanterra Parks and Resorts, which holds a concession to do so from the National Park Service. At many of the facilities run by Xanterra, guns are prohibited by a sign at the entrances. So you can travel outdoors throughout the park carrying concealed, but the moment you enter one of the Yellowstone hotels or restaurants, you're expected to surrender your right to self defense.
Under federal law, the same applies in federal facilities in the parks, such as the various visitor centers.
The irony of this was particularly evident at the Visitor's Center at Mammoth Hot Springs. The familiar sign on the front door bans firearms, but inside, the exhibits lovingly display a variety of -- you guessed it -- guns! The exhibits are about the official expeditions that explored the park and include the equipment carried by members of the expeditions, including their weapons, such as these:
Clearly, these are weapons of self-defense, and park officials believe that there is value in displaying them. Yet the point seems lost on them that self defense is as vital today as it was back then.
It is a crime that a company that works for U.S. taxpayers and accepts taxpayer money should be hostile to the right of those taxpayers to exercise their Second Amendment rights inside facilities that those taxpayers paid for and own. The federal law that bars carrying
