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Legal Issues Concerning Martial Artist
Bill would hide gun-holders' identities - Concealed-carry legislation includes privacy provision, By Patrick Marley
Taken from the Sept. 30, 2005, edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Madison, WI - The public would not be able to learn who can legally carry concealed weapons under a bill that would make Wisconsin the 47th state to allow average citizens to take guns on the street.
In rolling out legislation Thursday that would allow people to carry concealed weapons, state Sen. Dave Zien (R-Eau Claire) and Rep. Scott Gunderson (R-Waterford) said they wanted to protect the privacy of permit holders.
Making that information public could lead to police officers targeting permit holders in criminal investigations even if they did not have reason to suspect them, Zien and Gunderson said.
"There are other states where it's public record and it's been just a holocaust," Zien said.
The bill comes two years after Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed similar legislation. The Senate voted to override that veto, but the Assembly fell one vote shy of doing so.
Doyle told students at Walden III School in Racine he would veto the latest bill.
"I don't think it makes communities safer if people are going to shopping malls with guns in their pockets," Doyle said.
Zien and Gunderson countered that the bill would make the public safer because criminals would be less likely to rob people if they knew some of them might have guns.
Peter Fox, executive director of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, said he was troubled the bill would keep the names of permit holders secret, as the 2003 bill did.
"Here we have people around the state carrying lethal weapons," he said. "The public should know who they are and what are the reasons they are carrying them."
During routine traffic stops, police officers could not check whether the owner of the vehicle possessed a permit to carry concealed weapons - a provision in the bill that Appleton Police Chief Richard Myers called unacceptable.
"What they're saying is officer safety is the lowest concern of the people who wrote this bill," he said. "Why would you not want a police officer to know what they're walking up to in a car?"
But Gunderson said the estimated 100,000 permit holders would likely be the most law-abiding people in the state.
"These aren't the people they need to be afraid of," he said.
Training course required
The bill would require the state Department of Justice to issue permits to any applicants 21 and over who took a training course and who had not been convicted of domestic abuse, felonies, violent misdemeanors or drunken driving. The permits would cost $75.
Louis Danielson, a 42-year-old paper mill worker who already holds a Minnesota permit to carry a gun, said he would take his semiautomatic pistol wherever he goes in Wisconsin if the measure becomes law.
"It's like the locks on your front door. If you don't lock them all the time, what's the point?" said Danielson, of Gillett, near Green Bay.
The legislators said they expect a vote on the bill by the end of the year.
Jennie Tunkieicz of the Journal Sentinel staff, reporting from Racine, contributed to this report.