Yellowstone National Park officials say a gunman killed by park rangers as he fired a semiautomatic rifle at the entrance of a dining facility with 200 people inside had told a woman he planned to carry out a mass shooting
The warning from a woman in Yellowstone National Park came in just after midnight on July Fourth: She’d just been held at gunpoint by a man who said he planned to carry out a mass shooting — a random attack common in the U.S. these days but not in the Yellowstone region, let alone the park itself.
Rangers spent the next several hours trying to find the gunman before he showed up outside a dining area with 200 people inside. He shot a barrage of bullets with a semi-automatic rifle at a service entrance.
The rangers — including one who was wounded — shot back. Their rounds hit the attacker, Samson Lucas Bariah Fussner, 28, of Milton, Florida, who died at the scene in the busy Canyon Village tourist lodge area near the scenic Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.
Wyoming resident and frequent Yellowstone patron here. Everything about this screams suicide. The man did everything possible to announce his intentions, then chose to shoot at a service entrance. He knew that there is a 100% chance that someone, patron or ranger, in the parking lot would have a high caliber weapon handy.
You can’t carry a gun in a national park.
Edit: I’ll be darned, you can carry in national parks.
Per the National Park Service Website. You are allowed to carry a gun in national parks; but notably you’re not allowed to take it into government facilities: “government offices, visitor centers, ranger stations, fee collection buildings, and maintenance”. Additionally, it is not allowed to discharge the weapon unless you have specific hunting licenses.
I don’t know what bearing this has on this tragedy, if any, but to facilitate civil discussion it’s best to have a shared understanding of the law.
You can indeed carry a gun in a national park. The law was changed in 2013.
Edit: I am wrong. It was 2010.
Source?
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