Public safety votes to highlight reach of WI GOP gerrymander, gun lobby
The defeat last year of two-term gun lobby favorite Scott Walker is about to produce important, visible consequences: acid test votes, though GOP legislators may evade that formality through official leadership disinterest, and lessons about how a tainted partisan gerrymander can continue to devalue democracy by squashing public opinion.
While WI GOP legislative leaders have gerrymandered themselves into illegitimate authority and already stated their predictable no, never posture, the special session Gov. Tony Evers
just called on two common sense gun safety measures which enjoy broad public backing will force every legislator to declare if they stand with the gun lobbies or the people. Here is the text of the Governor's order:
While WI GOP legislative leaders have gerrymandered themselves into illegitimate authority and already stated their predictable no, never posture, the special session Gov. Tony Evers
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just called on two common sense gun safety measures which enjoy broad public backing will force every legislator to declare if they stand with the gun lobbies or the people. Here is the text of the Governor's order:
Gov. Evers Signs Executive Order #54 Calling for a Special Session on Legislation to Address Gun Violence |
| MADISON — Gov. Tony Evers today signed Executive Order #54 calling the Legislature to meet in a special session on Nov. 7, 2019 to address gun violence in the state of Wisconsin. "Since taking office in January, I have called on the Legislature to take action and pass commonsense gun safety reform time and time again, giving Republican leadership the opportunity to hear the people of our state and to do the right thing," Gov. Evers said. "Today I am delivering on my promise to call a special session to address gun violence across our state and I'm calling on Republicans to work with Democrats to get this done." In the Executive Order, Gov. Evers requests the Legislature act on two critical proposals that are supported by 80% of Wisconsinites. The proposals outlined include:
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1 comment:
The Republicans are right to vigorously reject Evers' grandstanding and demagoguery. The fact is that Wisconsin, like the vast majority of states, already has laws to address people who are an imminent danger to themselves or others. See WIS. STAT. ANN.
§ 51.15(1)(a). There is no need at all for the so-called "red flag" laws whose sole purpose is to deprive people of their civil rights without due process.
Likewise, everybody with a clue knows that background checks are a solution that lack a problem. Expanded background checks are not connected with reductions in violent crime or homicides. It's well established in academic research that criminals don't get their guns through legal purchases in the first place, so the background checks have no legitimate purpose.
I am thankful and relieved that the Republicans in the state legislature are standing strong. They are protecting not only rights, but the lives of innocents.
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