All Aboard, And Bring Your Guns

Amtrak Passengers Can Bring Firearms On Trains Starting Dec. 15

By HANNA SIEGEL

Dec. 1, 2010

Starting December 15, Amtrak will allow passengers to travel with unloaded guns on trains. The new policy, a reversal of a ban in effect since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, is backed by conservatives and the National Rifle Association, and blasted by critics as costly and unsafe.

"Once this takes effect," said Daniel Vice, senior attorney for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, "you would be able to check, for example, a dozen AK-47s onto an Amtrak train -- and once they're on there, the baggage car's not secure like a cargo hold of an airplane."

Starting in two weeks, train travelers will be able to check handguns, shotguns, rifles and starter pistols at stations that offer checked baggage service, including the stations in New York, Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

The guns must be unloaded and in approved locked hard-sided containers and passengers must declare their firearms and notify Amtrak 24 hours in advance. In addition, reservations that include firearms must be made over the phone.

Andrew Arulanandam, Director of Public Affairs for the NRA, says that anyone who thinks the new provision compromises the security of passengers is "making a bogus assertion."

"We think it's reasonable for people who choose to travel by rail to be able to transport a firearm for whatever lawful purpose," said Arulanandam.

Senator Roger Wicker, the Mississippi Republican who proposed lifting the ban, says he believes the original ban was unnecessary to begin with. "I think it was an overreaction based on I think some incorrect attitudes on the part of Amtrak and their leadership after 9/11 and frankly I think it was anti-gun, anti-hunter, anti-sportsman and unfair."