Posted on 10/19/2005 11:37:35 AM PDT by freepatriot32
Last week, two state legislators finally introduced the controversial Personal Protection Act, a proposal that would allow citizens to bear a gun, knife or as ridiculous as it sounds a billy club in public. The bills drafters include every gun-lovers hero, Sen. Dave Zien, R-Eau Claire, a man with more rifles and shotguns on his office walls than the Madison police, and Rep. Scott Gunderson, R-Waterford, the Assemblys alleged hunting expert.
Undercutting progressive gun-control initiatives, state politicians around the country have bowed to the NRA-rabid right and their backward more guns, less crime rhetoric in their absurd belief that hidden handguns deter crime, that everyone would be afraid to harm anyone else out of fear that a weapon is shoved down every pocket. This has spawned the passage of laws in almost every state to allow citizens to carry concealed firearms in public. Wisconsin, as one of four remaining states that has thus far rejected political conformity, is now threatening to succumb to the pressures of the gun lobby.
While alarmists like to predict a chaotic scene reminiscent of the Wild West, there are many risks associated with allowing citizens to sport hidden handguns whose logic is more concrete than fantastic predictions of Matrix-style shootouts on Bascom Hill.
In support of their legislation, Messrs. Zien and Gunderson have continually quoted a flawed study by gun-loving economist John Lott, whose linking of concealed-carry laws to lower crime rates has been frequently debunked by a multitude of esteemed scholars and pro-gun criminologists. Just as there is minimal proof that conceal and carry brings out the Clint Eastwood in every citizen, there is little evidence that the laws effectively deter would-be assailants and thieves. Rapid decreases in crime rates across the nation can be more directly associated with strict gun access laws and post-Sept. 11 security initiatives than weak provisions that allow individuals to bring their pistol to the supermarket.
You dont need to be a staunch anti-gun advocate to see why letting people carry guns in banks, churches, university dormitories, and the state Capitol is a fundamentally bad idea. While granting citizens the means to protect themselves, it also gives criminals the means to commit crimes. Concealed-carry extends more rights to crooks and felons, guaranteeing that some weapons will fall into the wrong hands, making law-enforcement a virtual nightmare. Perhaps this is why the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association strongly opposes the Zien-Gunderson bill.
Police, more than anybody, would know how the presence of a handgun endangers all parties, including the guns owner for 12 percent of law enforcement officers killed by firearms are shot to death with their own service weapon. Guns quickly escalate a situation, and bringing one into the fold imagine a drunken brawl or back alley mugging only stands to make things much, much worse. You go from losing your wallet to losing your life; you go from enduring a black eye or a bloody nose to suffering from a gunshot wound.
Proponents of the legislation especially love to claim that conceal and carry is necessary for self-defense. Yet the odds that one would use a gun on an assailant or thief are quite minimal of the over 30,000 gun deaths in 2002, only 163 were deemed justifiable homicide, and its well known that a gun is 43 times more likely to be used in killing its owner or a relative than an intruder. The legislation, which is opposed by a majority of Wisconsin citizens and state gun owners, is supposedly intended to protect the disabled and the elderly. Yet these are the very people who would have the most difficult time obtaining the necessary gun permit, and the citizens who would be most incapable of effectively operating a firearm at all.
In America, guns are presented as the solution to everything. Too many school shootings? Give teachers firearms. Airplane hijackings becoming a problem? Arm the pilots. Too many criminals running loose? Let citizens wield their semi-automatics and use the law at their own discretion. In a nation where gun violence remains a virtual epidemic, the very poison itself is also assumed to be the anecdote. If more guns lead to less crime, then why does the United States, with the developing worlds most lax gun laws, suffer from 93 gun deaths every day, four to five times more than any other industrialized nation? If owning a weapon makes people safer, then why does a gun in the home triple the risk of homicide? If gun accessibility is not a problem, then why do firearm fatalities remain as the second leading killer of this nations youth?
Other states have bowed to our fear-driven culture and the junk science it produces, undermining rapid advancements in curtailing crime and dealing a blow to effective gun control. I would hate to see Wisconsin do the same.
Adam Lichtenheld (lichtenheld@wisc.edu) is a sophomore majoring in political science and African studies.
You got it!!!! Be glad to post it!
What a f'n moron. "Ooh, I can carry a gun legally once I show that I don't have a felony conviction, take a test, and fill out all this paperwork." "Okay, great! Got my permit. Now I can go use my newly permitted firearm to rob someone."
Somebody buy this clown a clue.
The only people put in danger are the criminals and the gun owners that think they don't need to practice with their weapon prior to use.
can some one tell me how to post a picture i found another gem of dear adam
Yeah College Boy they have been waiting just for this law to pass so they can go rob someone !
BRAWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH !!!! What a Maroon ! What college is this zipper head going to Bell Curve State ?
Facts and data in 34 plus other states that have had the CHL process for "years" prove yer talking points are just blithering blather BS !
he's factoring in suicides
I remember a few years ago a story with something like the following headline:
Was the headline factually accurate? Yes. Was it honest?
I wonder if this guy is any relation to the Bugblatter Beast of Traal?
Kinda hard to see which side of the isuue he's on.
Thought you should see this from your state....
What a friggin idiot. Does he REALLY believe that criminal bent on committing an armed robbery will not go forward unless he can legally conceal the weapon on the way to the crime?
Does he REALLY believe, in other words, that someone prepared to violate laws against armed robbery or murder will be thwarted by a slavish devotion to a law prohibiting concealed carry?
What a quaint--and idiotic--view of the world.
It's funny you mention that. I don't personally carry, but a good friend of mine does, and he is the exact same way. I don't recall him acting that way until he got his conceal carry license.
Man, that kind of crap really pisses me off. I don't usually get my news from the MSM any more for that reason. I'm dealing with that just fine thanks to the internet.
What really gets me, though, is that I know that probably the majority of our population does get their news from these losers, and it probably never occurs to them that they're being fed a bunch of exaggerations, misrepresentations, and outright lies.
Forget the billy club, someone might actually carry a baseball bat! **gasp**
Sophomore -- so that's the etymology of the word sophomoric....
You go from losing your wallet to losing your life
Poor ickle poof can't see himself except as a complaisant victim. "Oh Mr Powerful Righteous Downtrodden African. Take your reparations. Take my women. (I don't enjoy them anyway)."
What a pathetic individual, and what a pathetic essay.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
They found less than 1000th of 1% broke ANY law. It wasn't worth the money. But, facts apparently would get in the way of this idiots feeeeeelings.
Concise & to the point. I sent an equally worded letter along with my contact info.Why do I get the feeling he isn't man enough to respond?
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