Permitting the right to carry handguns throughout the Commonwealth is essential, and the our wilderness and recreation parks are no exception. There have been few if any negative repercussions outside of our Parks from the increasingly permissive atmosphere and attitude toward legally armed citizens, and there is no reason to belive that any different outcome would occur inside of our parks.

Having personally witnessed violent criminal acts being commited in State Parks, and having worked with organizations that track and locate illegal marijuana fields on State property, wild animals are the last of my personal safety concerns when using our Parks. Further, there have been instances of kidnapping and evidence of serial murders in other Parks within the Commonwealth.

In our National Forests, I am able to legally defend my family, myself, and my fellow park patrons. Dispite being able to carry there, and doing so, I have never used or immediately needed to use a legally carried firearm in those areas, However, I have also never had any experience to indicate that I might not someday need a firearm, and further, I have never experienced or heard of any legally armed citizen in those areas behaving in any way that might indicate that the ability to legally carry in remote recreation areas should be restricted.

Further, as a Search and Rescue professional for nearly a decade, I have experienced the presence of illegal weapons (poachers) in State Parks while unarmed, albeit accompanied by a large group of others, and I cannot fathom that a someone simply hiking through one of our Parks should be forced to be exposed to such dangers unarmed. Additionally every piece of legitimate survival training material I have seen recommends firearms as one of the most basic and versitial element of a well-thought-out survival kit. Functioning as a tool for defense, hunting in more extended senarios, signaling rescuers, or using the ammunition components as a highly effective and safe firestarter.

As to my lesser concern of dangerous animals, having grown up on a rural woodland farm, I know the hazards of wild animals. Whether it be feral pack dogs, rabid raccoons or other animals, or an overly-protective female bear, there is no reason for the citizens of the Commonwealth to be forced to leave at home their best means to protect their families. I say this understanding that a primary purpose of the parks is to protect the wildlife, and that humans place themselves in danger from those animals by using the parks. However, if the Commonwealth is willing to accept that legally armed citizens can and do use their good judgement to use deadly force only to defend themselves from human attackers in the most dire and necessary of circumstances, it follows that that they can be relied upon to excercise the same or greater care and judgement when faced with a threatening animal.

There are simply too many safety benefits that come from the ability of citizens to legally carry handguns in our Parks, and too few legitimate concerns about threats to others for the Commonwealth to continue preventing law-abiding and well-intentioned citizens from extending their personal responsibilities to their experience inside our Parks.