Posted on 04/29/2009 11:03:34 AM PDT by ellery
MILWAUKEE - Outdoorsman, gun enthusiast and NRA member Ben Auer believes Wisconsin Attorney General JB Van Hollen just made it easier to carry a gun in public.
“He looked at our right and he confirmed it,” Auer told TODAY’S TMJ4 reporter Tom Murray.
Van Hollen told prosecutors in a memo that simply carrying a firearm should not result in a disorderly conduct charge.
“A number of different district attorneys from around the state requested our opinion on this issue,” Van Hollen said. “When you have people who openly believed that carrying a firearm in and of itself was disorderly conduct, we wanted to clarify that most certainly that was not.”
Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn disagrees. He said he instructs his officers to operate believing that most of the guns they see are illegal.
“We have a moral obligation to the community to protect it from people carrying firearms,” Flynn said. “You’re carrying a gun in Milwaukee, you’re going to comply with our lawful orders. Unless, you’re going to have your permit tattooed to your head, I don’t know how you’re going to get around that.”
Flynn has the support of Mayor Tom Barrett, who spoke Wednesday at an anti-gun violence event in the City Hall rotunda. Organizers put 450 t-shirts on display to represent the average number of people killed by guns in Wisconsin each year.
“I understand where sportsman and hunters want to have guns to shoot at animals. I don’t have a problem with that,” Barrett said. “There is a difference between Vilas County and the City of Milwaukee.”
Governor Jim Doyle also criticized Van Hollen’s advisory.
"It's ridiculous to think that somebody should walk down Wisconsin Avenue with a loaded firearm on their hip,” Doyle told reporters Tuesday. “But that's very different from what you might do in a smaller northern Wisconsin community."
Deborah Harris lost her 26-year-old son to gun violence. He was murdered in Milwaukee three years ago. Now she’s speaking out against the attorney general.
“I’m just hoping we can get a control on the guns,” Harris said. “I don’t believe that you should be able to carry a weapon on the streets or even in any part of the city limits.”
Van Hollen declined to specify where and under what circumstances carry guns openly is legal. He said it is up to gun owners to understand the law.
“We have a moral obligation to the community to protect it from people carrying firearms,” Flynn said. “You’re carrying a gun in Milwaukee, you’re going to comply with our lawful orders. Unless, you’re going to have your permit tattooed to your head, I don’t know how you’re going to get around that.”
Ed Flynn is Mitt Romney's former Secretary of Public Safety in Massachusetts.
ping to a related article
How long ago was that? And, what relevance does it have to his actions today?
No one is killed by a gun.
They may be killed by another person with a gun (or a stick, or a knife, or a car, or even a toilet plunger for God's sake).
They may even be killed by themselves with a gun.
But no one is killed by a gun.
Journalistic Idiots!!!
If her son had been openly carrying, he may not have been targeted or may even had defended himself. I woild also guess the shooter was already a criminal who probably doesn't carry his piece openly.
Gun control advocates are separated from reality.
Simply mentioning a previous job he had.
Flynn was Romney's Sec. of Public Safety until 2006. People will have to decide for themselves whether the type of people politicians appoint to their cabinets are relevant.
*ping*
What was Flynn's position under Romney?
Romney appointed Flynn his Secretary of Public Safety.
SUE THESE BASTARDS FOR VIOLATING OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS... SUE THEM PERSONALLY UNTIL THEIR LIVES ARE DESTROYED... TAKE EVERYTHING THAT THEY HAVE... LEAVE THEM AND THEIR FAMILIES ON THE STREETS AS BEGGARS!
LLS
LLS
I got that part. Apparently you are trying to paint Romney with a negative brush based on Flynn's stand on what it happening in Milwaukee. Again, I ask. What was Flynn's stand on the Second Amendment under Mitt Romney.
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"
Pretty radical stuff... - very hard to understand
The right of enjoying and defending life, without the privilege of protecting it by all the means which the law as well as nature, in extreme cases, furnishes, would be illusory to the last degree. Therefore, this privilege belongs to us, and, by the Constitution of the United States, to every other citizen of the United States in common with us.
Douglass v. Stephens, 1821
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a4_2_1s17.html
Ever seen a leopard change its spots?
I haven't either.
I’m not painting anything — just pointing out the views of his former Secretary of Public Safety. Flynn is such a radical gun grabber that he’s willing to defy the AG of his state — use his the police as his personal stormtroopers to take down people exercising their second amendment rights.
You think Flynn was a staunch second amendment supporter three years ago when he worked for Romney, and has just undergone a radical change of philosophy since then?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.