Remind Me Again. Exactly Why Do We Need CCW?

by capper

A friend once remarked:

Remember…my friend, it’s better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.

I, and I believe a certain four year old girl, would respectfully disagree. From the AP link at JSOnline (emphasis mine):

A 4-year-old girl shot herself in the chest Monday after snatching her grandmother's handgun from the woman's purse while riding in a shopping cart at a Sam's Club store, authorities said.

A witness, Lueen Homewood, said store workers grabbed first-aid materials off store shelves to help the grandmother as she cradled the wounded child near the store's pharmacy, The (Columbia) State newspaper reported on its Web site.

The girl was rushed to a hospital in critical condition and was recovering Monday afternoon after surgery, said police department spokesman Brick Lewis. Hospital officials would not release her condition after the operation.

Lewis said the grandmother, Donna Hutto Williamson, has a permit to carry a concealed weapon and the purse containing the small-caliber handgun was in the cart near the child. The 47-year-old Williamson, of Salley, was not immediately charged with a crime.

Williamson, a South Carolina magistrate, was distraught after the shooting, her mother-in-law said.

How is this a good thing again? Who was protected?

Eric Thompson -- Worst Person in the World, Wisconsin Division

By Keith Schmitz

Wisconsin has a dubious distinction, that being the source for the guns used in two of this country's latest campus gun tragedies, certainly among the most horrific.

Taking advantage of the Internets, Eric Thompson and his company TGSCOM supplied the firearms that enabled Seung-Hui-Cho at Virgina Tech and Steven Kazmierczak at Northern Illinois University to jump into the headlines by murdering a total of 50 people at those schools.

As a disgusting example of turning lemons into lemonade, rather than showing any shame or embarrassment for being connected with these incidents, Thompson visited Blacksberg, VA yesterday to speak at the Virginia Tech Students for Conceal and Carry on Campus event. In addition, he is working to provide holsters donated by customers and manufacturers to almost 30 colleges and universities for students participating in "empty holster protests."

If that isn't enough, in a spirit of twisted generosity Thompson announced he will be selling guns at cost for two weeks in an effort to arm citizens and in his mind, prevent future tragedies.

From the press release touting his "good work,"

He has become a leading advocate for allowing law-abiding, trained individuals to carry a firearm to protect themselves and the people they love.

Yeah right Mr. Thompson. Tell that to the families that lost the "people they love" on these campuses. Parents who lovingly raised their kids to become successful, functional adults only to get a phone call and hearing that a person they love was gunned down by someone who used a weapon -- purchased from you.

It would be nice to think that somewhere deep down inside you are capable of understanding this loss and not using this tragedy in a perverse way to glorify yourself to people who have some romantic notion about guns and how they can magnify their self-importance.

Gun violence is a serious problem in this country. Somehow the idea that when something is a problem that having more of it seems to be more than a bit off kilter, especially in a low crime state as Wisconsin, where our violent crime rate is sixth lowest in the country.

Everyone in the US has a right to own a gun and to free speech. But you sir have taken this to a level of buffoonery and in effect, you are literally spitting on the graves of these people that someone loved.

Eric Thompson of Green Bay. Today's worst person in the world.
(With apologies to Countdown with Keith Olbermann).

How Not To Make A Point

by capper

I have often expressed my concern about the possibility of Wisconsin passing a concealed carry law. Naturally, there are some squeaky wheels who sit in opposition to this position, and advocate for such a law, citing antecdotes.

In today's JSOnline Newswatch, there is another antecdotal story that confirms my postion:

A 76-year-old West Bend man was charged today with brandishing a shotgun at a city snow plow driver after apparently becoming angry that the plow struck his mailbox.

According to a criminal complaint filed today, Edward H. Haas, of West Bend, at about 4:45 p.m. on Monday followed the plow driver to the next block on Park Avenue and parked a minivan in front of the plow, blocking its path.

The plow driver said Haas ran up to the truck, yelled "You hit my mailbox four (expletive) times," went back to the van, pulled out a double-barrel shotgun, brought it up to his shoulder and aimed it at the driver, the complaint says.

When he saw Haas point the gun at him, the driver immediately stepped on the truck's accelerator and turned it away from Haas, according to the complaint.

West Bend police responded and went to Haas' home, but Haas refused to come to the door after police knocked. Officers entered the house and after a brief search found a shotgun in a basement storage room that fit the description given by the plow driver, according to the complaint.

Haas told police he did not aim the gun at the driver but waved a broom stick at him, the complaint says.

Haas was charged Tuesday with pointing a firearm at another person and disorderly conduct with a dangerous weapon. Both are misdemeanors. If convicted on both counts, Haas could be imprisoned 18 months.

Haas has no prior criminal record, according to online court records. He could not be reached for comment.

This man has gone through 76 years without committing a crime. And he was wielding a shotgun, not a handgun. Yet he threatened someone's life and safety in a moment of rage.

Now imagine hundreds, if not thousands of younger people, packing handguns, walking and/or driving around. It only takes one moment of rage and someone could get seriously hurt, if not killed. Of course, the recent news of a rash of shootings, both locally and abroad, already proves that point.

How Effective Are Concealed Carry Laws?

by capper

I fully expect the right to talk about the news from last night and use it as one more reason why they think Wisconsin needs to have a concealed carry law.

However, there are two basic flaws to their arguments.

First, it has been said time and time again how most of the gun shootings stem from gang members feuding with other members. Since both sides are armed, would this be a version of concealed carry, albeit not a legal one? Even though these gangsters know the other side is probably armed, this does nothing to slow them down from taking shots at each other. Why would the CCW proponents think that regular citizens being armed would slow these people down from using guns on them?

Secondly, as the CCW proponents are fond of pointing out, Wisconsin is one of the two or three states that don't have concealed carry laws. Yet in the last week or so, we have seen mass shootings in Chicago, Los Angeles, Baton Rouge and Kirkwood, MO. None of these shooters seemed to detered by the possibility of citizens having guns. Heck, even the shooters in L.A. and Kirkwood weren't detered by the police, who obviously have guns and extensive training in their use.

So, how can they possibly think that by having Wisconsin pass a CCW law would have any effect on shootings here?

Concealing motives for gun permit secrecy

By Bert

It was two years ago this week that a white, suburban, church-going, and gainfully employed man named Terry Ratzmann shot dead eight innocent people in Brookfield.

I resurrect that awful case not to provoke some fight about gun control issues. The fact is, that fight has already been provoked. So I bring it up to join in.

The website of the Roanoake Times published the names of concealed- gun permit holders in Virginia on Sunday. This brought down an avalanche of outrage on the paper, and also some local commentary from places where you'd expect it.

This revives the issue of whether an exception should be made to standard open-records laws so that the names of permit-holders should be kept secret in the states that allow concealed weapons for most citizens. This secrecy provision was part of the past debates here in Wisconsin on the concealed carry bill that Gov. Jim Doyle has vetoed twice.

The common objection to public access to these government records is flimsy. The story goes that criminals will diligently research these data, then surmise who is not packing heat, and victimize those not on the list. Please.

That reason is flimsy because it's not the real reason. The motive for secrecy is related to the pro-gun campaign's talking point that only lawbreakers commit gun crimes. The evidence for this is the claim that you can't find cases of law-abiding citizens who use guns illegally. It's only the "bad guys". Besides the circularity of the argument, you can see where they are going with this. They want to avoid bad press from the inevitable cases of the rare bad-apple permit-holders shooting wives in a domestic dispute, or getting likkered up and trigger happy, etc.

It's cases like Ratzmann's that don't fit the image of the bad guy that propels this campaign. In fact, setting aside for the moment that he killed eight innocent people, Ratzmann fit the promoted image of the decent, law-abiding gun owner. There is a reason why this case of gun violence is not trotted around repeatedly.

Instead, we hear more about the lessons we should learn from the case that occurred a month later in 2005. This was the older Arkansas man, stopping to ask for directions at a gas station on North Avenue in Milwaukee, who shot and killed a young man who tried to rob his van.

The pro-gun campaign depends on a manufactured message. It is a naive either-or vision of perfect people like you and me on one side, and exaggerated threats lurking on the other. Open records, and tragedies like Terry Ratzmann, contaminate that message.

No Carry for Me

Last week, a conservative acquaintance emailed that he’d recently realized that “few, if any, opponents to concealed carry had ever heard a presentation which addresses the responsibilities and consequences of carrying a concealed weapon.

“Seemed to me,” he wrote, “that were someone who opposes concealed-carry to hear such a presentation, it might be an ‘AHA!!’ moment.”

I am, in fact, an opponent of concealed-carry legislation. But I doubt sitting through a presentation like that would change my mind. My opposition has little to do with not knowing all the responsibilities and consequences of carrying; it has everything to do with the kind of place I want to live in.

I’ve always appreciated that Wisconsin’s motto is “Forward”; it means my adopted state ought to spend its time thinking about how to progress as a society. Regression towards the Old West runs, I believe, counter to the motto.

More importantly, I don’t want to live in a society ruled by fear.

At a town hall meeting last month with my state senator and representative, an advocate for concealed weapons wanted to know why the two had opposed concealed-carry bills in the legislature, and had voted to uphold Governor Doyle’s vetoes.

After complaining that Wisconsin was one of a dwindling handful of states yet to allow concealed carry, and claiming that crime rates had fallen in other states after the measure’s passage, the gentleman finally got to the heart of why he felt he needed a gun.

“These people,” he said—and everyone in the room full of white South Side faces knew exactly whom he was referring to—“these people will get so bad they’ll drive everyone out of town!” Here was a man, a Vietnam veteran, according to his hat, letting fear and prejudice drive his desire for a concealed weapon.

I’m not suggesting that everyone who favors concealed-carry has the same kind of underlying issues he does; but a common argument among advocates is, “We need to protect ourselves.”

I can’t tell anyone not to be afraid—it just doesn’t work that way—especially given last summer and the kind of summer we seem headed toward this year. But I can say that it’s unlikely our law-abiding, class-taking, responsible-seeming gun-toters will ever need to defend themselves against a violent crime. There’s something soothing, maybe, in knowing you’re packing, but you are probably not going to be a victim of a violent crime perpetrated by a stranger—“these people,” as some might say.

The FBI’s crime statistics repeatedly tell us that, more often than not, violent crime is not random, and victims usually know perpetrators. Even the violent Memorial Day weekend just passed bears this out: Most victims knew the person who pulled the trigger.

As to the claim that carrying reduces crime, it is suspicious at best. (The author of a book with a similar name is a demonstrated fraud.) Yes, violent crime rates fell during the 1990s in states that liberalized their carry laws. But to believe the changed laws cause the drop in crime is to fall for the oldest social science fallacy. Just because two things happen sequentially does not mean that the first caused the second.

Because guess what happened to violent crime rates in Wisconsin during that same time period, with the same restrictions in place that the NRA and my email correspondent now want changed? If you guessed that they fell, you win.

In fact, in 2000, only four states had less violent crime reported to the police than we did, with our rate being half that of the US as a whole. Last summer’s murder rate notwithstanding, Wisconsin continues to have one of the lowest rates of violent crime, all without concealed carry.

Sure, maybe we could drop a few more points in the ratings—though there is not that far to fall—if we thought criminals would be afraid every potential victim of theirs was carrying.

But in the same way that I don’t want to let fear drive me to carry, I think there are better deterrents for criminals than fear. The same things that probably lowered crime rates in the nineties—expanded economic opportunity and money for more police on the streets—will work just as well now.

And I don’t need a presentation to tell me that.

Answers to burning questions

No, I didn't watch the speech. I, like Ben, expected nothing original. Sounds like we got it.

Yes, I am glad concealed carry failed again. Though, I must say, I was all excited to hang my new "No Guns Allowed" sign outside my door. I'd even photoshopped a copy of my ACLU card onto it, just for good measure.

Yes, I did see this story on the achievement gap. I even downloaded and printed the WPRI report to read. Left it at work. I have some ideas--maybe tomorrow.

No, I don't have the energy for a McIlheran Watch right now. I was thinking about turning it into a villanelle (not haiku), but that takes time I ain't got tonight.

Yes, I am excited to see that Wisconsin is one of the seven states on the economic honor roll. No, I doubt it will quash those persistently pesky "tax hell" myths.

A real debate at Real Debate

For a long time there were two things wrong with the title of Fred D's Real Debate Wisconsin*. Not anymore! Today, he and blue-leaning Belle face off on the notion of concealed carry. Go have a read.

*Fred seemed dismayed I haven't been mean to him yet this week, so I had to do something.

Concealed Carry goes down, again--and there's a lesson here

The right Cheddarsphere will complain about yet another Jim Doyle Veto on a Friday--and, frankly, I also would have preferred he waited until this statement could get more press:

The bill does not create a single job, help a single Wisconsin citizen afford health care or improve schools for a single Wisconsin child.

Several others in the left half of the Cheddarsphere have already commented, including Xoff and Ben, the former of whom notes that this sentence should be a mantra. I agree--in fact, it could just be added below the word "Veto" on the red rubber stamp. Perhaps it could even be added to legislative Republicans' stationery, just to save Democrats the time.

Here's a challenge to the right Cheddarsphere: Name one initiative Republicans have sent to Doyle in the last six months that does the things Doyle has challenged them to do.

UPDATE: Rick Esenberg tries the challenge and fails.