I am in favor of the proposed amendment to allow holders of a conceal carry permit to bring firearms into Virginia's State Parks.  As a group, Virginia's conceal carry permit holders are law abiding, well-trained in gun safety and otherwise known to be exercising their permit rights throughout the Commonwealth with virtually no instances of abuse, carelessness or wrecklessness.  Allowing this group of citizens to exercise the same rights within our State Parks as they currently exercise in most places outside of our State Parks will not represent any threat to public safety and, in fact, in an extreme situation that we all hope never happens, a fortuitously positioned permit holder might turn out to be a "life-saver."

In general, absent some very compelling reason to the contrary, citizens ought to enjoy the same rights and freedoms in our State Park system that they enjoy generally outside of our State Park system.  There is no reason that legal rights should end at the Park perimeter, especially in this case where we are talking about citizens that have been screened, trained, fingerprinted and otherwise "blessed" by law enforcement as responsible firearm owners and handlers. 

Thank you for your thoughtful consideration hereof.