Here’s a problem for the Lackawanna County park system: They’ve passed new rules that prohibit “unlicensed firearms.” Sounds reasonable until you notice that the park is in Pennsylvania where they apparently don’t license guns.

Awkward!

The new rules prohibit “unlicensed firearms” from county parks, language county officials have acknowledged needs to be re-examined. That review is not anticipated to delay the posting of the rules, said county solicitor John O’Brien.

“The way it’s set up now, legal gun possession has not been made illegal by this law,” Mr. O’Brien said. “Whatever is previously proper and legal continues to be so.”

But because all guns in the state are unlicensed, the law can also be interpreted to ban the carrying of all guns in county parks, argued Kim Stolfer, chairman of Firearm Owners Against Crime, a statewide gun rights group.

“The way it’s crafted, ‘no unlicensed firearms’ … since we don’t license firearms (in Pennsylvania) they will all be banned by virtue of that language,” Mr. Stolfer said. “They’ve blatantly done this even though they’ve been notified ahead of time … (and) they’re setting themselves up for a federal civil rights action.”

The park rules also prohibit smoking, skateboarding and unsupervised children under 14, which sadly sounds more like a description of my childhood than a list of things to ban.

The county is considering changing the word “unlicensed” to “illegal,” but did not elaborate on why something that was illegal needed to be banned.

“Maybe that word (unlicensed) isn’t right. Maybe it should have said illegal,” a spokesperson said.

Anyhow, try to keep the comments civil, folks.

Park gun rule could lead to federal civil action, advocate says [Times-Tribune via Fark]

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