Guns & Glacier: No-shoot zone

Inter Lake editorial

It appears that within a year, visitors will be able to carry firearms in Glacier National Park, a significant change in the rules with potential for trouble.

That's partly because Glacier will still have rules prohibiting guns from being discharged within park boundaries except in cases of self-defense. That won't change, even with a new federal rule allowing for the public to carry firearms in national parks in accordance with applicable state laws.

Whether visitors will completely understand the idea that you can carry but not shoot remains to be seen.

Most folks in the Flathead Valley are aware of differences in how Glacier National Park and national or state forest lands are managed. They are savvy to the reality that you can do some target shooting near, say, the Sylvia Lake campground on the Flathead National Forest, but you just can't do that kind of thing in the park. Glacier has busy trails and frontcountry campgrounds and all wildlife in the park is protected all the time.

Glacier Superintendent Chas Cartwright is rightly concerned about the reality that many of Glacier Park's thousands of summer visitors, from places far away, won't know the difference.

He's rightly concerned about how a gun-toting visitor might react to seeing a grizzly bear near one of Glacier's trails, or what they might do if they hear a strange noise outside their tent in one of the park's jam-packed campgrounds.

The new rule will certainly change things for the park's enforcement rangers, who could find themselves in very new situations.

Guns were never banned from the park; visitors could always bring them in if they were properly stored and unloaded. And visitors could find some security in carrying bear spray, which the park has successfully promoted as the most effective means of deterring an aggressive bear.

As the new gun carry rule takes effect, the park should step up that bear-spray campaign and other education efforts to ensure visitors understand the realities of Glacier Park.