December
2005
Concealed Carry: The NRA’s Masterful Home Invasion Plan
The state Assembly is set to vote Tuesday, Dec. 13, on concealed carry, a new law that would allow state residents to get a permit to carry a concealed gun in public.
The security guard in the 19-story downtown Milwaukee office building where I work is aware of the vote, he tells me when I mention it on my way in to the office Monday. He’s also aware that it will likely pass, even though most of the police agencies in the state are opposed to concealed carry. Gov. Doyle, who spent years in law enforcement as the state’s top prosecutor, is also opposed, and has said he will veto the bill. The opposition of police and other law enforcement officials is good enough for the security guard in my building - he doesn’t think concealed carry is a good idea.
Like most people, he hasn’t thought about concealed carry that much and hasn’t considered its implications, or that it would directly impact his job and his life. He hadn’t realized for example, that, if concealed carry becomes law, anyone who walked through the door in our building could be carrying a gun to work.
Can the security guard prevent this? According to concealed carry law, he would have to post a sign saying that guns are prohibited in the building. He, or building management, would also have to verbally notify everyone in the building that they would not be allowed to bring their gun to work. The burden of responsibility to enforce the rules would fall to the security guard.
Under concealed carry, the security guard’s job becomes much more difficult — and dangerous.
When his shift is over, he won’t be allowed to leave his security work at work the way he can now, not in the new concealed carry Wisconsin. The way the law works, he’ll have to keep up the vigilance when he gets home if wants to prevent people from bringing guns into his house. When his buddies come over for a Monday Night Football game, if he wants to make sure that none of them bring a gun into his house, he must “verbally and orally” notify them them that they can’t bring concealed weapons into the house. If he forgets, their rights to carry a gun in his house are intact. He might as well just post the sign he posted at work to make sure there’s no misunderstanding.
The security guard in my building is like many people in Wisconsin. He considers himself an independent (sometimes votes Republican, he says) and won’t swear allegiance to either party. Partisanship doesn’t explain concealed carry: Republicans are pushing it but too many Democrats are supporting it. The security guard just can’t believe the burden is on he and his wife to make sure he doesn’t violate the concealed carry rights of his friends — or the cable guy or the Avon lady — in his own home.
Really, that’s what the concealed carry bill says. It legislates that the concealed carry permit holder’s rights to carry their weapons outweighs the rights of a homeowner who doesn’t want a friend or neighbor bringing a gun in the privacy of their home — until the notification conditions are met. By then, it’s too late: the gun lobby and the state will have invaded Wisconsin homes by legislative decree.
Imagine if the legislature imposed similar rules on behalf of smokers. Republicans and Democrats alike would call it an invasion of people’s homes by big government, and there would be public outcry against big tobacco. Sadly, there’s too little outcry in the Legislature about big government and the big gun industry interests behind concealed carry.
How and why would thoughtful, independent Wisconsin people support the craziness of concealed carry? They don’t. There’s no hue and cry for concealed carry in the state; most people are like the security guard in my building — they don’t think about it that much. The gun lobby, we can all rest a uneasy in our homes, does a tremendous amount of thinking about concealed carry. The National Rifle Association and gun manufacturing and sales interests have worked diligently for decades on concealed carry laws around the country; in Wisconsin, these forces have masterminded a new law that would legislate a culture of guns throughout the state. It legislates that the concealed carry rights you never thought about much before are now something you get to think about and enforce in your home.
From a gun marketing perspective, it’s brilliant. To make it happen, the gun lobby has pumped millions and millions of dollars into concealed carry campaigns, research, legal battles and new laws all over the country, filling the campaign coffers of politicians like our representatives in Madison. For gun interests and gun sellers, concealed carry is good for business.
And for politicians far less independent than the security guard in my building, concealed carry is, with elections less than a year away and the campaign coffers open, good for business.
John-david Morgan
John-David Morgan, Watchdogging Wisconsin
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Some years ago, elements in this city tried to “ban” handguns within the city limits, much like the “successful” ban in D.C. — It failed.
I can recall daily support from the Sentinel which included the daily skull graphic composed with handguns.
I think it was less than two days before the referendum when they quietly and spontaneously opposed the change- apparently large enough numbers of readers were cancelling subscriptions. (*The position change is public record; the subscription thing is not.)
Years later, in the same building, Journal Communications would hire armed guards for the executives on higher floors while they got rid of some pesky pre-merger unions.
It is dirty, crappy, and maybe true to say that anonymous gun ownership has done more for workplace fairness in the last 30 years than most — ask a unionized postal worker how their environment improved after some particularly poor events.
I’ve read some of the studies too, there is no consistent evidence to support or deny a reduction/increase in crime with concealed carry.
The whole thing smells of competing camel noses, slippery slopes, etc. — be it a total ban and collection, or tax breaks for rocket launchers.
Maybe you can tell the security guard that permits will only be allowed to people who pass a criminal background check, which is more demanding than what the state requires of security guards.
You could also suggest not working at the Delphi Pension Bldg. or Enron.
If right to carry passes, (which I’m quietly supportive of) I will probably take the class and get a permit — not because I own a gun (I don’t), not because I want to carry a gun I don’t plan to buy, not because I’m inflexible on the oft-threatened 2nd amendment, not because I think concealed carry will reduce crime or that I’m insensitive to the unreasonable carnage that is firearms — but because I can. I like the idea of mean people being uncomfortable as a consequence of their actions — and I have no problem being nice to fellow law-abiding strangers
p.s. I have talked to older people in this town who fondly remember carrying *cased* shotguns on public transit to go hunting when they were children in what are now the suburbs.
Agreed that the studies have been used by both sides of the debate. Assembly Rep. Jon Richards from Milwaukee, the leading opponent of concealed carry in the Legislature, has solid research showing that crime rates decreased just as much, if not more, in states that don’t allow concealed carry - so why pretend that concealed carry is a deterrent to crime? The argument falls on deaf ears. We’ll never know in Wisconsin, because permit holder lists will not be public, according the bill.
There is a great deal wrong with concealed carry, and the amendments passed in the Assembly early Wednesday morning addressed only a few of the crazier parts of the bill. Schools are now a safety zone, thanks to one amendment. How did schools fail to get protection from concealed weapons the first time around? To have made schools a safe zone would have suggested that there is something abnormal and wrong about holstering a gun everywhere. The NRA, the author of the bill, is doing everything it can to uproot the logic that says a concealed gun is both threat and opportunity for crime.
Important note: The NRA annual meeting/convention will be held in Milwaukee May 19-21, 2006, at the Midwest Express center.
Whether concealed carry overcomes the upcoming Doyle veto or not, expect big payoffs for the bills supporters in the state Legislature. And if Doyle can’t find the single additional vote he needs in the state Assembly to uphold the veto (he has 33 votes, needs 34), expect a rootin’ tootin’ orgy of a campaign cash party with the victor’s spoils going to the Legislature’s gun industry supporters.
“He, or building management, would also have to verbally notify everyone in the building that they would not be allowed to bring their gun to work.â€
That just isn’t true – building management will have the option to use either oral notification or post a 11†x 11†sign.
To quote SB403 (943 is the State section on trespass):
“SECTION 73. 943.13 (2) of the statutes is renumbered 943.13 (2) (am), and 943.13 (2) (am) (intro.) and 1., as renumbered, are amended to read: 943.13 (2) (am) (intro.) A person has received notice from the owner or occupant within the meaning of sub. (1m) (b), (e) or (f) if he or she has been notified personally, either orally or in writing, or if the land is posted.â€
Are you suggesting that it is right to make it so that all employers who don’t want employees or visitors packing heat at work should have to post a sign?
I would argue that decent and humane citizens should not have to give notice to would-be predators that they’re about to break a trespass law. If they’ve got an insecurity that makes them need to carry a hidden pistol into the workplace, they should have to serve notice that they’re carrying a loaded weapon.
Decent hardworking people shouldn’t have to worry if some nutcase is carrying a hidden weapon into their work. These people who want to bring concealed weapons into places of worship, places of employment and places of socialization are no better than a suicide bomber strapping a bomb onto themselves or someone carrying around live grenades.
Thanks to Dolemite for posting the applicable portion of the law. It appears that it was amended to make the notification rules a bit more sensible and less burdensome. My original post was written before the Assembly amended the bill last Tuesday.
That said, the crux of our argument remains, whether in the office building or in the home:
“[Concealed Carry] legislates that the concealed carry permit holder’s rights to carry their weapons outweighs the rights of a homeowner who doesn’t want a friend or neighbor bringing a gun in the privacy of their home—until the notification conditions are met.”
The security guard in the building I work in doesn’t want guns in the building. We lose either way if concealed carry becomes law because, potentially, the parking garage could now be filled with guns left in glove compartments, trunks, etc.
Most people are not going to bring a gun to work, or want to, and many employers would fire a person who would do so. As a person who works for a labor union, I can easily see how I could then, potentially get that person’s job back on grounds that there might not have been clear notification given in the person’s workplace.
Either way, whatever the ramifications, the gun industry wins and is winning. We are having an excellent discussion here, but the fact that we are having it, that we can see a near future where guns will have invaded our day to day lives with unknowable affects — some of which are downright frightening — is more than a bit alarming.
Check that note on Sen. Plale: Follow-up calls to Plale’s office for clarification on how he would vote on Doyle’s concealed carry veto have revealed that Plale will vote to override. Plale says he supports concealed carry, always has and will not back the Doyle veto. Apologies for the error. Not sure how the person who called his office came away with the idea that Plale was changing his vote; at this point, it has not changed.
The police can’t protect us 24/7. Case in point follows, from AP today:
“Updated: 4:41 p.m. ET Dec. 27, 2005
MILWAUKEE - At least 15 young people dragged a motorist out of his car and kicked and punched him, causing severe head trauma, after he honked his horn to get them to move out of a street, police said.
It was the latest in a series of mob beatings in the city.
The 50-year-old man was in critical condition Tuesday and it was unclear whether he would survive, police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz said.”
Are you suggesting that vigilanteeism is a better approach?
Reports now show that this ex-con was trying to buy cocaine and his drug trafficking went terribly wrong. Don, would you suggest now that we should allow ex-con drug traffickers to conceal deadly weapons?