Wisconsin Senate & Assembly Will Attempt to Override Gov. Doyle's Veto on Concealed Weapons Legislation. Act Now to Keep Wisconsin Safe and Keep Concealed Weapons from Being Carried on Our Streets.
Currently, carrying concealed weapons is illegal here. Our laws prohibit the carrying of hidden, loaded guns on buses and into parks, banks, shopping malls, grocery stores, playgrounds - many of the places frequented by you and your family. Wisconsin is one of fourteen states that significantly restrict or simply don't allow the carrying of concealed weapons. Makes sense, doesn't it?
To most of us, the answer is, yes! But again this year, the legislators who do the pro-gun lobby's are attempting to pass a "shall issue" carrying concealed weapons’ bill, one that says the state shall issue a permit to carry a concealed gun to nearly anyone who wants one.
Wisconsinites are overwhelmingly opposed to this legislation, and in the last legislative session, the people of Wisconsin prevented this bill from becoming law by contacting their State Representatives and Senators and letting these elected officials know that they didn't want concealed weapons allowed in Wisconsin.
Wisconsinites know that it makes sense to prohibit the carrying of concealed
weapons. We haven't gone down the path traveled by other states like
Texas, Florida and Louisiana. Those and many other states that allow
concealed weapons have much higher firearms death rates and much higher
violent crime rates than Wisconsin does. Allowing the carrying of concealed
guns is a dangerous idea. And it's dead wrong for Wisconsin.
What
You Can Do
The
legalization of concealed weapons will turn back the clock on gun violence
prevention and allow nearly anyone to carry concealed weapons nearly anywhere.
Governor Doyle vetoed this bill in 2004. But the pro-gun lobby is back
in Wisconsin again, pushing its agenda to legalize hidden, loaded guns,
yet polls have consistently shown that 70% of the people of Wisconsin do
not want concealed weapons to be legal. We need you to speak up and tell
your legislators that you expect them to represent the people of Wisconsin,
not the gun lobby. Please help keep this dangerous and irresponsible legislation
out of our state.
The time to voice your opinion is now!
Here's what you can do:
1. Contact your legislator and tell them to oppose SB 403 and AB 763. To find out who your state legislators are, call the toll free hotline at 1-800-362-9472 or click on this link: http://www.legis.state.wi.us/waml/. You can also contact your legislators directly through the web site, http://www.legis.state.wi.us.
2. Write letters to your local newspaper expressing your concerns about legalizing concealed weapons.
General Talking Points for Letters to the Editor:
The people of Wisconsin don’t want to legalize the carrying of concealed weapons
Research has consistently shown that concealed weapons do not increase personal safety or decrease crime
Permit fees do not begin to cover the costs.
Taxpayers will be forced to subsidize a program they don’t want in the first place
Sadly,
this law would tell our children that the adults of Wisconsin believe
the best way to live amongst each other is armed. That’s
not the kind of future most of us want for our children.
3. Support WAVE Educational Fund, and we will lead the fight against the legalized carrying of concealed weapons. With your help we will succeed in our work to prevent firearm violence in Wisconsin.
Together we can make sure our legislators understand that the people of Wisconsin mean it when we say: "It's past time to stand up to the gun lobby. We're tired of seeing our daughters, sons, brothers and sisters hurt by gun violence."
4. Get Involved. Please volunteer your time and expertise. Contact us via email: wave@WaveEdFund.org or call (414) 351-9283. Your help is always needed.
We need to keep our state free of concealed weapons. It's time to take a stand for common sense and make sure the gun lobby does not prevail over the vast majority of Wisconsinites who support the current law.
Many groups are working with Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort and have made the effort to defeat the CCW bills a top priority. Organizations including Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association, the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and the League of Women Voters are standing together to defeat concealed weapons.
WAVE and the other coalition members thank you for helping to drive the gun lobby out of our state.
There's
just no need to legalize
concealed weapons.
Wisconsin's law against carrying concealed guns in public places has
served us well for more than 130 years. Compared to states that have
passed "shall issue" concealed carry laws, our state remains
a relatively safe place to live. By many measures, crime rates are dropping
in Wisconsin even as the Midwest as a whole experiences an increase in
crime. Even in states with "shall issue" concealed carry permits
readily available, only one or two out of every one hundred adults carries
hidden guns. There's no justification for the state to sanction an unsafe
practice that 98% of adults know will likely do far more harm than good.
Despite the gun lobby's rhetoric, concealed guns are generally a terrible
self-defense tool and are hardly ever used to actually thwart burglaries
or assaults. Allowing nearly anyone to carry hidden, loaded guns nearly
anywhere simply won't make us safer. Common sense and years of history
tell us that there's just no need to legalize concealed weapons.
Permissive
laws on concealed guns
consistently indicate more gun deaths.
All
15 of the states with the highest firearm death rates have permissive "shall
issue" concealed carry laws like
the one being proposed for Wisconsin. 11 of the 15 states with the lowest
firearm death rates (Wisconsin included)
prohibit concealed carry or have restrictive laws.
Law enforcement supports the current law.
The Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association strongly supports the state
prohibition against carrying concealed weapons in public. Police officers
and sheriffs from around the state oppose the carrying of hidden, loaded
guns in public. Law enforcement is our "front line" in dealing
with gun crime. We should listen to law enforcement instead of the gun
lobby on this issue. Law enforcement officials don't want the state to
sanction what is an inherently unsafe practice.
Our
Supreme Court backs a
general prohibition against concealed guns.
In July 2003, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in favor of Wisconsin's
prohibition against carrying concealed weapons. The court supported keeping
weapons concealed only for persons in their own residences and private
business owners in their own premises. The court also said that the general
prohibition against carrying concealed weapons in public is supported
by our state constitution. The majority decision was crystal clear as
quoted directly: "Wisconsin's prohibition of the carrying of concealed
weapons is, as a general matter, a reasonable exercise of the police
power, and serves many valuable purposes in promoting public safety.”
Concealed
carry can mean
more crime, not less.
There's no credible evidence that carrying hidden, loaded guns in public
reduces crime. Period. Statistics being used by concealed carry proponents
are, at best, inaccurate interpretations of data or, at worst, verbatim
quotes of "statistics" pulled out of thin air by the National
Rifle Association. An authoritative new book from the Brookings Institution, "Evaluating
Gun Policy" by Ludwig & Cook, 2003, reports that researchers
from Stanford and Yale (Ayres & Donohue) replicated and extended
concealed carry proponent John Lott's main study and concluded that it
was deeply flawed and that he was mistaken in his interpretation of the
data. They found that more concealed guns will not reduce crime and,
if anything, may increase it.
Wisconsin
residents, gun owners included,
don't want to legalize concealed weapons.
Polling
data in Wisconsin consistently shows opposition to legalizing concealed
weapons in the range of 60% to 75% of all adults. The public is absolutely
against legislation such as AB763/SB403. About two-thirds of gun owners
in the state oppose legalizing concealed guns. Carrying concealed is
not a part of responsible gun ownership, as our law has stood since the
1870s without hindrance to hundreds of thousands of hunters and competitive
shooters. Only a vocal minority of state residents, led by the extremist
pro-gun lobby, actively supports legalizing concealed weapons. Just because
a very small group of people wants to carry loaded guns around in public
doesn't make it a good idea or good public policy.
Legalizing
the carrying of concealed weapons
will be bad for Wisconsin’s businesses.
Allowing guns on business premises is dangerous: Employees are nearly
7 times more likely to be murdered in a workplace that allows guns. Unfortunately,
the proposed legislation will make it very difficult for businesses to keep their
workplaces safe. Businesses wishing to prohibit concealed weapons in their buildings
will have to post a sign and personally and orally notify visitors and customers
at each entrance. Furthermore, they cannot prohibit concealed weapons in their
parking lots. In other states, the passage of a concealed weapons law exposed
businesses to numerous costs and risks, as shown in the report, Hidden Guns,
Hidden Costs: The Legalization of Concealed Weapons Is Bad for Business.
1) CCW Business Summary (PDF)
2) CCW Business Report (PDF)
Unknown
permit holders from other states
can carry hidden guns here.
AAB763/SB403 allows all concealed weapons permit holders from
any other state to carry their weapons in Wisconsin. Non-residents will
be able to carry loaded weapons in Wisconsin no matter what the training,
background checking, and other requirements are in their home state.
The
Legislature needn't send a
dead wrong message to our young people.
A permissive state law allowing nearly every adult to carry concealed
guns will send a terrible and troubling message to our young people, telling
them loud and clear that "the solution to crime and gun violence is more
guns carried by more people." Common sense and credible data say otherwise.
Our kids deserve better than a dead wrong signal from the state about the "value" of
carrying loaded guns around.
CCW
provides an irresponsible boost
for industry marketing and
increased handgun sales.
Permissive laws allowing the carrying of concealed guns have swept
the nation, not because of public demand but because they are a good marketing
tool for the sale of handguns. Evidence abounds that the gun industry and gun
lobby believe that CCW is not a matter of rights or effective personal self-defense,
but rather an effective way of selling more guns.
Gun-Totin'
in Texas
A Closer Look at CCW
An author of the shall-issue
carrying concealed weapons bill in Wisconsin has proclaimed that those who
will apply for a CCW license are "salt of the earth people…they
will not be committing any crimes." He further promised that because "the
good citizens" will be armed, all of us would be safer. But when we
look at the facts from a shall-issue state, these promises ring hollow.
In their study, License to Kill IV: More Guns, More Crime, the Violence Policy
Center revealed just how dangerous it is to legalize the carrying of concealed
weapons. The study examines the 5,314 “law abiding” citizens
who were arrested after having received a CCW permit. Offenses for which
the CCW permitees were arrested included, murder, attempted murder, kidnapping,
rape, aggravated assault, driving while intoxicated, indecency with children,
among others. One of their findings was that, "From 1996 to 2000, Texas
concealed handgun license holders were arrested for weapon-related offenses
at a rate 81 percent higher than that of the general population of Texas,
aged 21 and older.” (emphasis in original)
Also
consider the following, which appeared October 3, 2000 in the Los
Angeles Times:
In 1995, four months into his first term as governor, George W. Bush signed
a bill ending a 125-year ban on concealed handguns in Texas. The new law,
he vowed, would make the state "a safer place," and he promised
Texans that license applicants would undergo rigorous background checks.
But since the law took effect, the state has licensed hundreds of people
with prior criminal convections-including rape and armed robber-and histories
of violence, psychological disorders and drug or alcohol problems...
James W. Washington got a license to carry a concealed weapon despite having
done prison time in Texas for armed robbery. So did Terry Ross Gist, who
left a trail of threats and violence in court records from North Carolina
to California. A license also went to an elderly Dallas man with Alzheimer's
disease.
Still others committed crimes, ranging from double murder to drunk driving,
after they were licensed. A frustrated commuter, Paul W. Lueders, shot
and severely wounded a Houston bus driver. Audi Phong Nguyen ran with a
Houston
home invasion ring. Diane Brown James helped her husband kidnap a San Antonio
woman to be their sex slave.