Coordination of Rifle Purchases With FLETC
Because NPS policy requires that firearms purchases be coordinated through FLETC officials, we interviewed the NPS firearms program manager who is stationed at FLETC. She told us that she does not provide oversight for NPS employees, including the park rangers at the individual parks, but that once a year she selects one large park or several smaller parks within a geographical area to conduct a "hands-on" weapons inspection. She told us that during these inspections she conducts a full inventory and reviews security measures, controls, and maintenance for weapons at the park. She said that she also looks for weapons that were not authorized in accordance with NPS policy. She said that she had not conducted an inspection at MNP since she took the program manager position at FLETC in 2006, and her records indicated that no inspections had been conducted at MNP since at least 2002.
She said that per NPS policy, parks are required to send her the specifications of any rifle or shotgun proposed for purchase, and she ensures that the weapon complies with the policy. For rifles, she ensures that the selected model is a .223 semi-automatic, gas operated instead of piston operated, with a 14.5-inch barrel. She said that once she approves the weapon, the park purchases it with its own funds and she is no longer involved in the process. She said that if a park asks to purchase a weapon that does not comply with NPS policy, such as a fully automatic rifle, the request would be sent from the chief ranger at the park through the regional chief ranger and to the DCOP for a waiver. She said that a waiver, if granted, would be in writing and would identify the specific weapon and explain why it is needed at that park. No one from MNP contacted her prior to the purchase of the Colt M-4 rifles.
She said that she first learned that the park rangers at MNP had purchased fully automatic rifles in June 2014, when the chief ranger contacted her to ask about it. She said that MNP had not requested or received a waiver to purchase the fully automatic rifles. She said that the two Colt models she routinely receives requests for are Models LE6920 and LE6940, both of which are semi-automatic rifles. She knew of no parks in NPS, other than MNP, that had purchased fully automatic rifles. She was not aware of any park within NPS that had a waiver to carry fully automatic rifles and did not believe that NPS would approve such a waiver. She said that some parks had waivers to allow patrol rangers and Special Event and Tactical Teams to carry a rifle that fired three-round bursts, but that MNP was not one of those parks.
She said that she believed that law enforcement rangers at NPS parks routinely bought new rifles and shotguns without notifying her as required in NPS policy. She said that park personnel are probably not aware of the requirement because only one sentence in the policy addresses it.
She also said that the policy does not require parks to purchase any specific brand or model of rifle; any rifle that is a .223 semi-automatic with a 14.5-inch barrel and meets the mil-spec requirements would be acceptable. She said that she does not consider the mil-spec criteria when reviewing the rifle specifications because most manufacturers do not have "mil-spec" as a part of their written specifications. She said that mil-spec is hard to define and confusing to understand and could be interpreted differently depending on the individual.
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