Question about the new laws allowing guns in national parks?

I am a little confused on this. It says that a person may carry a gun if they have a concealed carrying permit. Does this only apply to hand guns. Can somebody openly carry a rifle or shotgun with out a permit?

No, it says your state laws will determine what (if any) firearms you can carry in the National Parks in that state.

The new federal law will prohibit enactment or enforcement of federal rules (Code of Federal Regulations Title 36 2.4(a)(1) and Title 50 27.42) that previously restricted firearms possession, and defers to the state laws in which the National Park or Wildlife Refuge is located, provided the person is “not otherwise prohibited from possessing a firearm.”

For example, if your local state permits pistols to be carried without a license, then the same rule applies in the National Parks in that state.

This law avoids the ridiculous situation that occurs when you walk or drive through a National Park in possession of a firearm, which was legal outside the park, but not in the park itself. For example, you could be arrested in Boston for carrying a weapon through a National Park, just because you crossed the street in front of the Old State House, which is National Park property, even if you had a valid license to carry everywhere else in Massachusetts.

It becomes effective 9 months after it was signed, which was May 21, 2009 and overrides a federal injunction on enforcement of regulations that went into effect earlier this year.

The law states, in part, “The Federal laws should make it clear that the second amendment rights of an individual at a unit of the National
Park System or the National Wildlife Refuge System should
not be infringed.” Of course, the states still have the power to infringe those rights until the Supreme Court rules otherwise.