Parks Legislation

[johnharris]

The Senate will take up a parks bill this Wed (April 29).

The bill, with a proposed amendment, is expected to receive heavy opposition from the municipal interests and appointed law enforcement. The Tennessee Municipal League has already spoken against the bill on the record.

For example, even on "state parks" Sen. Kyle wants to give local governments the ability to regulate even state parks that are within their jurisdictions.

http://tnga.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.ph ... ip_id=1250 (About 15 minutes in)

I would like to have some discussion on on what the best talking points are on the parks bill and particularly the issues of whether and to what extent local governments should be allowed to control local parks.

[KevinMcCauley]

[SomeGuy]

Kyle against gun rights? Shocking! Well, about as much as if Michelle Obama was...

Talking points:

We have statewide pre-emption presently. Why weaken that? It serves us well creating a uniform set of gun laws in TN, so we do not have a patchwork where legal becomes illegal across a county/city line.

Who owns what park? It is sometimes hard or impossible to determine who owns a specific park. Good law abiding people will become criminals unintentionally.

State parks without local parks is not very useful due to the above two issues. It would be hard to exercise without fear of accidentally violating some local ordinance or other law.

HCP are the good guys. We should not have burdensome restrictions because we want to protect ourselves. We deserve legal protections from those who hate us.

This is a rough draft of my talking points for when I make my e-mails. Use it, mod it, add or whatever however you wish.

[David Lewis]

Everyone knows parks are safe...

Which doesn't explain the dead body found in Percy Warner Park several years back, by a college schoolmate of mine...

Or the drug-deal-related killing in Sevier Park...

Or why Edwin Warner was mostly closed down (it really wasn't for the birders)...

Or any number of lesser crimes committed in parks...

If they're so safe, why do park rangers carry guns?

David

[falcon1]

[johnharris]

I do not think they see it as allowing locals to tell the state what to do. First, remember its Jim Kyle dreaming this up and he is against guns in general - well at least with respect to civilians.

Second, I am not sure its a constitutional violation if the state says "guns are ok in state parks" unless the park is within the jurisdiction of a local city/county that objects to civilians protecting themselves in that county/city's boundaries.

[backwoodsman]

well , the rangers carry guns, cause they wouldn't be there otherwise, it's almost like government baiting,, lets bait this area with unarmed citizens and maybe we'll pull in some crazy criminals,,, i basically don't go in these place's,, and if i did, then you know, i would be more on alert ,just because it's a criminal friendly area,,somehow since 1776 we've been losing the right to protect ourselves, that snowball that's been rollin down hill, has gotten huge,and, am i just imagining this or have our first ammendment rights been taking a beating lately as well,, ?