Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Coming To A Bar Stool Or Pew Near You: Concealed Firearms

Republicans in the legislature are said to be hours away from unleashing one of their very favorite, long-stalled priorities - - permission to carry a concealed firearm.

Doesn't matter that most police chiefs don't want it - - the National Rifle Association and its Wisconsin offshoots have been aiming lo these many years to get this approved, and this Republican legislature isn't going to rock that boat.

I hope the opponents - - mostly legislators representing cities - - force the pro-gun-toters during debate to vote for bringing guns in to hospitals, legislative chambers, classrooms, nursing homes, houses of worship, day cares, taverns, rehab centers, anger-management therapy sessions, etc.

18 comments:

Reagan's Disciple said...

James,

Do you support our current law that allows for open carry of firearms? I don't really like that one myself, which is why I would prefer some type of CC legislation to conform to our constitution?

Have you noticed any problems in the other 48 states that allow this? Do you wish to share those with the readers?

CC will just put WI in line with 48 other states and is good legislation for the law abiding citizens of WI. Remember, this was only 1 or 2 votes away from an over ride of Doyle's veto a few years ago with a lot of democratic support.

Or, perhaps you enjoy just having the criminals be the only armed citizens in WI?

Caleb Foust! said...

Forty-eight states have conceal carry, and a significant number allow conceal carry in bars and churches.

Name one massacre or shooting as a result of this policy.

Jim Bouman said...

"Gun Nuts" are, quite simply, nutty.
And more than a little fanatical, especially in light of Winston Churchill's "fanatic" definition: a person who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

Reagan's Disciple said...

Jim,

Wanting to have your constitutional rights finally recognized by the state labels someone as a "gun nut?"

Мои сограждане американцы. Добро пожаловать на новый социализм!

Pretty much sums it up.

gnarlytrombone said...

The problem is that many gun nuts tend also to be all around nuts.

Other Side said...

Hmmm ...

December 2008

A gunman dressed as Santa Claus kills nine guests at a Christmas Eve party before taking his own life in Covina, a suburb of Los Angeles in California.

December 2007

A gunman kills eight people and wounds five at a shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska, before killing himself.

April 2007

Cho Seung-hui kills 32 people and wounds many more at the Virginia Tech college in Blacksburg, Virginia, in two separate incidents on the same day. Cho had been diagnosed with a severe anxiety disorder.

March 2005

Jeff Weise, a student at Red Lake high school in Minnesota kills five students, a teacher, a security guard, and then himself. Before school, he had shot dead his grandfather and grandfather's companion.

April 1999

Two students at Columbine high school in Littleton, Colorado, kill 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves.

October 1991

George Hennard drives his pickup truck to Luby's cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, then shoots dead 23 people before killing himself.


August 1986

A former employee enters a post office in Oklahoma and shoots dead 14 workers before killing himself.

July 1984

Twenty-one people are killed when a 41-year-old man opens fire at a McDonald's restaurant in San Diego. He is shot by police.

February 1983

Three men shoot dead 14 people in the Wah Mee club in Seattle's Chinatown.

August 1966

Charles Whitman, a former marine, holes up in the clock tower at the University of Texas campus in Austin, where he had studied. He kills 15 people and wounds another 32 before being shot dead by police.

Just the big examples. How many thousands of deaths related directly to the use of guns just in 2010? According to Time, 31,224.

Reagan's Disciple said...

Are you inferring that those events happened because of a concealed carry law in their respective states?

The argument here is not whether to ban guns rather allow citizens their constitutional right to carry one concealed. We already allow the open carry of weapons.

The incidents you cite have nothing to do with a conceal carry law. Did the criminals in your examples have a conceal carry licenses?

It appears you do not really understand the argument here. Which is conceal carry vs. open carry of weapons in WI, not banning guns altogether which we know does not work.

gnarlytrombone said...

Did the criminals in your examples have a conceal carry licenses?

Most if not all of the criminals in those cases weren't criminals before they chose to kill.

Other Side said...

I understood the argument completely. I happen to not like guns.

So, though I accept the 2nd Amendment and the rights it provides, it doesn't mean I have to like the gun culture that has been created.

Reagan's Disciple said...

gnarly,

What does being a criminal or not before the rampage have to do with it?

You actually proved my point. Deranged people are going to shoot up places regardless if there is a concealed carry law or not. Just because there is a new CCW law does not mean that people have MORE access to guns.

In fact, many of those cases involved high powered rifles, which try as you might, are very hard to conceal on a person.

The face is, none of those examples were caused by CCW. However, many of them may have been stopped sooner with less casualties should someone else have been armed.

Again, we are not discussing banning weapons, that will never happen and does not work (see DC or Chicago), rather enacting a new WI conceal law vs. our existing open carry law.

Do you have any thoughts on that topic, which is the point of the blog post?

Reagan's Disciple said...

@otherside,

It's not so much the gun culture that has been created, rather the culture that minimizes life and society in general that you should be concerned with.

How many more innocent lives have been killed by abortions than by any type of gun violence?

gnarlytrombone said...

What does being a criminal or not before the rampage have to do with it?

You asked if any of the criminals had a CCL. I replied they weren't criminals before their acts, so there was nothing preventing them from obtaining one.

The gentleman in the Knoxville church shooting, for example, wasn't "deranged;" he was pissed off. A concealed carry permit just makes it easier to go off in the heat of the moment instead of going through the trouble of going home to git yer gun.

Reagan's Disciple said...

gnarly,

To your point, it is also easier to defend yourself from a life threatening assault if you have "yer gun."

Good luck asking the bad guy if you can go home and get your gun before he attacks you or your family.

I guess I just have more faith and trust the law abiding citizens of our state than you do. The other 48 states don't seem to have the problems that you proclaim will happen.

gnarlytrombone said...

it is also easier to defend yourself from a life threatening assault if you have "yer gun."

According to John "Mary Rosh" Lott, his faked statistics and his sock puppets.

Other Side said...

How many more innocent lives have been killed by abortions than by any type of gun violence?

When all else fails, there's always the abortion line. Kind of like Godwin's Law.

Reagan's Disciple said...

@otherside,

Just noting the double standard as to how some people are outraged by some deaths and not at all by others.

If you would like to debate the CCW issue, let's keep at it. I just thought the anti-CCW crowd ran out of stuff to throw against the wall.

Other Side said...

@Reagans Disciple

Sorry, you lost me and the argument with the abortion line.

Anony Too said...

You, the law-abiding citizen walks into the public place with your permitted open carry. From the other end of the space enters the criminal--whether a criminal already or a criminal-to-be.

How do you tell if he's a criminal? How does he know your'e not? What about the mall cop who at least for now doesn't carry either? How is anyone to know?