The Department of Justice has drawn a hard line in federal court. Lawful self-defense carry is permitted in National Park Service visitor centers and other park buildings open to the public. That is the position the government took on October 2, 2026, in a motion to dismiss Zimmerman v. Blanche. DOJ argued that 18 U.S.C. § 930(a) does not bar that carry.
Section 930(a) is the federal criminal statute that restricts firearms in federal facilities. Visitor centers and other National Park Service buildings open to the public sit inside that statutory frame. In the October 2 memorandum supporting dismissal, the Justice Department told the court that this criminal law does not forbid lawful self-defense carry in those buildings. The filing treats public access as decisive: if the public is invited in, § 930(a) does not make lawful carry a crime.
Park Service Guidance Still Describes a Ban
That courtroom argument contradicts lingering National Park Service guidance. NPS materials still describe a firearms ban inside those same facilities. A citizen reading park rules is told to disarm at the door. The Department of Justice, speaking to a federal court, says 18 U.S.C. § 930(a) does not impose that ban on lawful carry. Those two statements cannot both be the law.
Zimmerman v. Blanche put the conflict on a public docket. The October 2 motion to dismiss and the accompanying memorandum are now part of the record, and Firearm Policy Coalition has published case materials. The government is asking a court to dismiss the action while stating, in its own filing, that the statute NPS guidance treats as a wall does not bar lawful self-defense carry in public park buildings.
This is not paperwork for its own sake. Visitor centers are where parks meet the public. They are federal buildings, and they are open doors. If § 930(a) does not criminalize lawful carry there, then leftover guidance is instructing Americans to disarm where the Justice Department says the criminal law does not require it. A brochure is not a statute, and a statute is not a repeal of the right to keep and bear arms.
The Second Amendment is the supreme law on that right. Agency guidance binds no one beyond the statute Congress wrote. DOJ's October 2 filing reads § 930(a) as leaving lawful self-defense carry intact in NPS buildings open to the public. The Constitution does not permit park language to criminalize what the statute does not, or to convert a public building into a gun-free zone by announcement alone.
The motion to dismiss is pending. What happens next is a ruling in Zimmerman v. Blanche and a choice by the National Park Service. Either NPS guidance will match the Justice Department's stated reading of federal criminal law, or park staff will keep telling the public there is a ban DOJ says § 930(a) does not impose. Officers who swore an oath to the Constitution owe the public the former.
References
- https://www.ammoland.com/2026/10/doj-says-gun-owners-may-carry-in-public-national-park-buildings/
- https://www.firearmspolicy.org/zimmerman
- https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73100297/zimmerman-v-bondi/
- https://assets.nationbuilder.com/firearmspolicycoalition/pages/16907/attachments/original/1790976112/2026.10.02_022_D's_Memo_ISO_MTD.pdf