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A group representing park rangers, retirees and conservation organizations said the rule change will lead to confusion for visitors, rangers and other law enforcement agencies.
"Once again, political leaders in the Bush administration have ignored the preferences of the American public by succumbing to political pressure, in this case generated by the National Rifle Association," said Bill Wade, president of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees.
"This regulation will put visitors, employees and precious resources of the National Park System at risk. We will do everything possible to overturn it and return to a commonsense approach to guns in national parks that has been working for decades," Wade said.

Seven former National Park Service directors went on record opposing any changes in the Reagan-era regulation last April in a letter to Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne.
The letter stated in part: “The current regulations have served the Park Service and the public well for the past 25 years. These rules, promulgated during the Reagan Administration, are essential to park rangers in carrying out their duties of protecting park resources and wildlife, and in assuring the safety of visitors to the parks.
As matters stand, visitors to the national parks are not prohibited from having guns. The regulations require merely that firearms in a visitor’s possession be unloaded and put away while within park boundaries. The regulation was crafted to be as narrowly restrictive as possible while assisting park personnel to prevent unlawful killing of wildlife. Informing visitors as they enter a park that their guns must be unloaded and stowed away puts them on notice that they are entering a special place where wildlife are protected and the environment is respected both for the visitor’s enjoyment and the enjoyment of others. While most gun owners are indeed law-abiding citizens, failure to comply with this minimal requirement can be a signal to rangers that something is wrong.
Removing that simple point of reference would seriously impair park rangers’ ability to protect people and resources, and if necessary manage crowds.
In all our years, we experienced very few instances in which this limited regulation created confusion or resistance. Park boundaries are required to be well marked. Even where national parks border wilderness or other open public or private land there is really little reason for hunters to claim confusion as to their location. Rangers have discretion to determine whether a particular violation of the rule should be prosecuted. There is no evidence that any potential problems that one can imagine arising from the existing regulations might overwhelm the good they are known to do.”
The seven directors signing the letter included: Ronald Walker, 1973-1975; Gary Everhardt, 1975-1977l; George B. Hartzog, 1964-1972; James M. Ridenour, 1989-1993; Roger G. Kennedy, 1993-1997; Robert Stanton, 1997-2001 and Fran P. Mainella, 2001-2006.
The park rule will be published in the Federal Register early this week and take effect 30 days later. Federal officials say overturning the rule could take months or even years, since it would require the new administration to restart the lengthy rule-making process.