Contempt for the Continual NRA Circus

The absurd contempt vote in Congress today is just another part of a never ending paranoid NRA circus.  It is troubling  that some Democrats included themselves in the shameful display. Does a 100% rating from the NRA really mean that much? To quote the guy in the video below, "Do we really need to take these nuts seriously?"


ht: The Political Carnival

Underreported Victims of a Gun Happy Society

When we have a collective debate on gun issues, sometimes we lose sight of the often underreported victims of careless gun policy. We often get bogged down in political grandstanding, legislative victories or false bravado and lose sight of important real world consequences. All-too-often the larger media follows us in that pattern and doesn't spend as much time on the many different victims of gun violence in our country.

For example, we don't see nearly enough reported about how gun violence disproportionately impacts women. The data over the years has repeatedly confirmed this disturbing reality.

• In 2008 7,451 women were treated in emergency rooms for gunshot wounds. A disturbing 66 percent of those incidents were assault related.
• 16 in every 1,000 women in the U.S. have been threatened with a firearm.
• Based on data from 16 states, 73 percent of female murder victims are killed in the home. That is compared to 45 percent of male murder victims.
• U.S. women's firearm death rate is 12 times higher than the combined rate of 22 other populous, high-income countries.
• Gun owners are 7.8 times more likely than non-gun owners to have threatened their partners with guns.
• Firearms appear to be more common in homes where battering has occurred (36.7 percent) than in the general population (16.7 percent)

This kind of troubling data is certainly why advocates against domestic violence stand against legislation like the so-called Castle Doctrine recently passed in Wisconsin. It essentially gives people a free pass from prosecution if they (even wrongfully) kill a person believed to be an intruder in their home. At the time the legislation was being considered, Tony Gibart, policy coordinator for the Wisconsin Coalition against Domestic Violence made the following case against it:

We're concerned that the bill might be used in ways that shield domestic abusers and people who perpetrate domestic violence homicide from accountability.

In addition there is the tragic and uncomfortable subject of suicide and the role that easy access to guns plays in that horrible problem. Again, the facts and reality show that we pay a heavy price in this area.

• 17,352 U.S. residents killed themselves with a firearm in 2007.
• Seventy percent of suicide attempters decide to kill themselves on an impulse - less than an hour before their attempt.
• More than 90 percent of suicide attempts with a gun are fatal only 3 percent of attempts with drugs or cutting are fatal.
• States with high household gun ownership have more suicides than states with low household gun ownership.
• Eighty-five percent of youths under age 18 who died by firearm suicide used a family member's gun, usually a parent's .
  

In an ideal world even the gun lobby would more often consider some of these underreported victims of gun violence before insisting on their broad and often radical policies. In an ideal world the larger media would do a better job of reporting all of the ugly realities of gun violence. In an ideal world the public would become more aware of all victims of gun violence and push for long lasting and life saving changes rather than feeding an increasingly gun happy society.

This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters' mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.

Badger Guns has new name, subject of a new study

Badger Guns, the West Milwaukee gun shop, has a long and disturbing record of selling guns that are eventually used in crimes. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has done an excellent job of detailing many of those issues. Some of the sales from Badger Guns were even used to injure 6 Milwaukee police officers in recent years. The shop's license was revoked for breaking federal laws and it stopped selling guns on December 31st. However this isn't the first time that they have run into this kind of trouble. The last time that they faced such an obstacle they simply transferred the business from father to son and successfully reapplied for a license.

It was recently announced that Badger Guns will be doing something similar. It is being sold from the previous owner to his brother and the name of the shop will be changed to Brew City Shooter's Supply. Once again the new owner is promising to do a better job of preventing sales of guns that are used in crimes but we have heard this story before. In fact Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn is understandably sceptical of the new arrangement because of the shop's long pattern. In the past he accused the store of having a business plan that involves selling guns to criminals. His recent observations about the new changes to the controversial gun shop are equally as blunt.

Generally, the best predicator of future behavior is past behavior, and every time Badger has been in trouble and surrendered a license, it's turned around and reissued the license and gone right back in the same business it was.

Badger Guns wasn't only in the news recently because of its change in ownership and name. It was also the subject of a new study released by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research.

The study found that the number of guns that were subsequently linked to crime sold by Badger Guns increased dramatically after Congress adopted measures (known as the Tiahrt amendments)likely to reduce the risks gun dealers face if they divert guns to criminals. The study is the first to examine the impact of these amendments on the diversion of guns to criminals and was recently published online in the peer-reviewed Journal of Urban Health.

The new study provides the following description of the Tiahrt Amendments:

The Tiahrt amendments are a series of amendments to appropriations bills and became law in 2003 and prohibit the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) from releasing data from crime gun traces. In 2004, the Tiahrt amendments further restricted crime gun-trace data by limiting access to government officials and prohibiting the use of these data in firearm dealer license revocations and civil law suits.

The study found that after the Tiahrt amendments went into effect, guns diverted to criminals soon after being sold by Badger Guns actually increased by 203 percent. The lead study author Daniel Webster, ScD, MPH, concluded the following from their rather shocking analysis:

Our findings suggest that changes to federal gun policy prompted a dramatic increase in the flow of guns to criminals from a gun dealer whose practices have frequently been of concern to law enforcement and public safety advocates.

This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters' mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.

(Reality) Check Yourself

Prior to Wisconsin passing a free-for-all concealed carry law, proponents constantly used the same shtick. Whenever there was a report of a crime anywhere, they would make the inevitable and overly simplistic comment that it never would have happened if we had concealed carry in Wisconsin. I'm wondering what these same people will say when crimes continue to occur now that Wisconsin does allow the legal carrying of hidden handguns. If their past arguments carried an ounce of weight, we should see a dramatic drop in crime because now criminals are suddenly rational and are they are cowering in a corner somewhere. The entire "if we only had concealed carry" argument is built mostly on faulty assumptions and pure fantasy.

The first assumption is that the person carrying the concealed weapon actually knows how to use it. The Wisconsin concealed carry law originally required at least four measly hours of training. However when the gun lobby cried about it, the requirement was quickly tossed. Now there is no real requirement that you even know what you are doing with a gun.

A firearms trainer from Wisconsin recently shot himself in the leg. And he was in a controlled environment on a firing range not trying to quickly engage a criminal. Then there was the recent story about a veteran police officer in a mall that accidentally fired his gun. This is someone with decades of experience and intense training yet the public is supposed to feel safe with a bunch of newly armed know-nothings?

Although there seems to be a lot of fantasies about people carrying concealed weapons and using them to stop crimes, there doesn't seem to be a lot of data to back it up. For example, there were over 1.3 million violent crimes (13,000+ of them were murders) in 2009 but only 215 of them ended with the criminal being killed by a private citizen using a firearm. As much as some people replay the scenario in their own imagination, it just doesn't seem to happen very often in reality. In fact one study suggests that you are 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault if you are armed than if you don't have a gun.

It is important to realize that being in the middle of a violent crime in progress is not going to play out like a scene from a movie. In the tragic shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and others in Arizona, the scene was absolute chaos. In fact one of the legitimate heroes was armed but his handgun very nearly became a horrible liability. He admitted that when he first came on the scene that he was very close to shooting the wrong person. He saw a man with a gun and didn't realize that it was an unarmed bystander that had just wrestled the gun away from the actual shooter. Eventually he decided not to pull his gun because he worried that some other armed person might make the same mistake and shoot him. Thank goodness that none of that happened during the terror and chaos. But the example should certainly teach us a few sober lessons.

Some people also insist that they are safer because they have a full arsenal in their homes but that also doesn't always turn out as imagined. In fact sometimes that can make you even more of a target. Just last month a criminal targeted a man in Hudson, Wisconsin. He kicked open the door and had his gun on the victim before he could even get to his multiple guns, brass knuckles, butterfly knife and an "electric weapon". In fact the armed intruder tied him up and stole both his money and his household weapons.

A vocal minority in Wisconsin continues to celebrate the careless and deeply flawed pieces of gun legislation that passed the state legislature this year. While they are rushing to fully arm themselves I hope that they also take a moment to assess the actual facts. I also hope that they are operating on careful reality rather than on some romanticized idea of what it means to carry a deadly weapon and (God forbid) to actually use it.

This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters' mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.

Are gun extremists ever satisfied?

The one thing that we have learned this year is that nothing ever seems to be good enough for the truly gun obsessed. They are apparently never happy and always seek the most extreme "solutions" to problems that often don't actually exist. Just when you think that they have achieved what they want, they just keep pushing for the furthest fringe. Exactly how far do they want to go with fully arming our entire society? Are there any limits at all and are the rest of us willing to let them drag us to such a dangerous place?

In Wisconsin the gun lobby has been unsuccessful in pushing concealed carry legislation for years. This year they finally got what we thought they wanted as concealed carry legislation was passed into law and recently enacted. However that wasn't good enough for the gun lobby because they didn't want any permit process whatsoever in the law. When their own ally, Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, presented very modest rules for the concealed carry process, they even attacked him. Apparently their constituency can't even handle the idea of having a whole 4 hours of "training" with a deadly weapon. I'm fairly certain that we can look forward to them trying to undermine the handful of weak requirements in Wisconsin's concealed carry law. Perhaps they will try it through additional legislation in Wisconsin's legislature or perhaps they will try to do it through big government legislation that they are trying to work through Congress.

As soon as the ink was dry on the enacted concealed carry legislation, the extremist gun lobby proceeded to the next item on their wish list, the so-called Castle Doctrine. It might be more accurately described as the Shoot First Doctrine. Feeding an apparent Dirty Harry obsession, this legislation would allow people to become judge, jury, and executioner if an intruder enters their home or business. In fact they seem to keep trying to extend where this law would apply (to things like the porch, driveway, and even adjoining sidewalks). It wouldn't matter if the intruder was unarmed and it wouldn't matter if they were not an actual physical threat.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm opposed the legislation saying the following:

Wisconsin, like most states, doesn't need a castle doctrine because current law, refined over the last half century, provides more than adequate protection for anyone legitimately acting in self-defense. "The statute in place right now is actually a very good standard, very workable, functional definition of self-defense," he said. Chisholm called the current bill a solution in search of a problem, one that "seems to introduce ambiguity that will make it difficult for law enforcement to make fine distinctions."

The Criminal Law Section of the Wisconsin State Bar also opposed the Castle Doctrine legislation.

"AB 69 changes Wisconsin law by providing a defense for irrational people armed with deadly force. Under its provisions, malevolent, reckless, or paranoid people who shoot trick-or-treaters or repairmen on their porch will be presumed to be acting in self-defense."

"...it provides a solid defense, and a favorable jury instruction, for any man who kills his wife in the family home and lies about it in court."

Nevertheless the Wisconsin Assembly quickly passed the bill earlier this week. In fact they did it so quickly that they failed to include proper protections for people like police, firefighters and other first responders. So after the legislation passed the state Senate the Assembly had to pass the new version. On Thursday the Castle Doctrine bill passed the legislature and awaits Scott Walker's signature.

But once again, passing the so-called Castle Doctrine is still not good enough. Earlier this week, just as the state Assembly took up this flawed legislation, the chairman of Wisconsin Carry Inc. suggested that this was only the beginning. He admitted that the home is the safest place that a person could be (so why the need for the Castle Doctrine then?) and that it is more important to have the "protections" of the Castle Doctrine law outside of the home. He is referring to the next leap to the fringe which is known as "stand your ground" provisions. It looks like vigilantism really is on the agenda.

This brings us back to my initial set of questions: Exactly how far do they want to go with fully arming our entire society? Are there any limits at all and are the rest of us really willing to let them drag us to such a dangerous place?

This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters' mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.

Where are Wisconsin's concealed carry loopholes?

On November 1st Wisconsin's new concealed carry law will go into effect. I am wondering how many loopholes we will later find in that law? How many will public officials unfortunately notice only after problems arise? Will they get past their Dirty Harry complex long enough to correct mistakes? There are at least a few areas where we should probably be looking for loopholes after November 1st.

When the Wisconsin Attorney General's office released the rules related to the new concealed carry law, it listed a fee that would be charged to cover a background check. That fee was listed as being $13, which tells me that they plan on using their own Crime Information Bureau (CIB) database to do that check. That database is a great tool for identifying any adult arrests and resulting court actions in Wisconsin. However it only gives you a record for adult arrests in Wisconsin. What if a person applies for a concealed carry permit and they have a record in another state that might otherwise disqualify them? How will the Department of Justice know if they only use a Wisconsin database to do the background check?

Recently we also learned that Wisconsin will honor concealed carry permits from at least 25 other states. This is another area where we should watch for loophole related problems down the road. Essentially we are owning the process in all of those 25 states including every lax rule. It will take time to discover the various loopholes that will open as a result of honoring permits from those 25 states.

Wisconsin is set to honor permits from Utah for example. Even the relatively gun happy state of Nevada decided to stop honoring Utah's concealed carry permits because of the lax rules. Some have actually described Utah's concealed carry law as being a mail order approach that has attracted applicants from all over the country. Wisconsin's choice to honor their permits forces us to also honor all of their loopholes and any problems that they might bring.

Last week Milwaukee's Shepherd Express ran a story about the new concealed carry law. In that story they reported several concerns that Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn had concerning it. He said that thousands of career criminals who have pleaded guilty to misdemeanors would qualify for a concealed carry permit because they are not convicted felons. They can carry a hidden handgun even though they are a literal menace to public safety. Flynn also said that almost half of those convicted of homicides in 2011 would have been eligible for concealed weapons permits because they had not been convicted of a felony prior to committing murder. For the same reason he further said that about 75% of convicted robbers could get a permit at the time of their crime.

The bottom line here is that Wisconsin legislators were in such a frenzy to pass concealed carry legislation that they failed to fully address these and other concerns. Unfortunately they were more concerned with pleasing a political base than they were concerned with carefully forming sound public policy. The various loopholes in Wisconsin's new concealed carry law will eventually become clear. Hopefully that clarity will not come at too great of a cost and hopefully our legislators will have the courage to make the necessary changes.

This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters' mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.

Bad Actors, Lax Gun Laws and Loopholes

We are unfortunately well aware of the lobbying efforts of groups like the National Rifle Association. They have a clear history of lobbying for some of the most extreme policies related to guns. Part of their legislative agenda includes a free pass repeatedly given to even the most problematic gun dealers. There probably isn’t a better local example of this than Badger Guns located in Milwaukee County.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting that the current owner of Badger Guns is planning on surrendering his license. The owner has said that he is only giving up the license because he lost a yearlong fight with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to renew it. This most recent fight with authorities is no surprise because Badger Guns and its predecessor Badger Outdoors have been the top sellers of crime guns for the past decade. In 2005 Badger Outdoors was actually listed as being the top seller of crime guns in the nation.

The highest profile crimes committed with guns purchased from Badger involved six Milwaukee police officers being wounded in less than a two year span. Badger Guns currently faces a civil lawsuit from 4 of the police officers that were severely wounded by guns sold at their store.

The current violations that have encumbered Badger Guns’ license are only the most recent in what seems to be an endless cycle. That cycle is clearly perpetuated by lax gun laws. For example, in 2006 when then-Badger Outdoors ran in to similar problems, the previous owner sold the business to his son who changed the name to Badger Guns. Even though the father and former owner of the business still worked at the store, the store was given an entirely clean slate. Use of that loophole essentially erased all of the previous violations. There is speculation that a similar maneuver could be in the works again.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has done an excellent job of highlighting these kinds of loopholes and other unnecessary problems faced by law enforcement. All-too-often law enforcement agencies like the ATF are largely powerless because their ability to actually regulate problematic gun dealers has been greatly crippled by Congress.

The current owner of Badger Guns can take any remaining guns, transfer them to his “personal collection” and sell them at gun shows without even doing a background check. He is already saying that although he is giving up his license that he will still continue to work at the store. He says that he will run the shooting range at the store which has been used in the past by felons. He will also sell ammunition and accessories which don’t require a federal license.

No wonder Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn commented on the owner’s getting out of the gun-selling business by saying, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” He knows more than anyone about the long history of violations and the selling of crime guns from that store, including those that were used against his officers. Unfortunately the lax gun laws and various loopholes created by the gun industry and their rubber stamp legislators serve only to perpetuate such problems.

This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters' mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.

NRA Lobbying for the Extreme

Finally after many years of Wisconsin rejecting their radical agenda, groups like the National Rifle Association finally got what they've wanted in Wisconsin. The new concealed carry law will go into effect on November 1st. But as is typical for people operating from such extremes, the new law apparently doesn't go far enough for the NRA. Earlier this week we learned that the NRA is now complaining because they don't like how Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen is interpreting the new concealed carry law.

The main problem that the NRA has with the Wisconsin AG is that he apparently plans to require at least 4 hours of training. According to various polls, the majority of Wisconsinites don't even support the idea of people walking freely around carrying hidden handguns. One can imagine that those same people would probably support such a common sense measure that at least requires some sort of training. But that would be the reasonable approach and based on the NRA's lobbying efforts in Wisconsin over the last few legislative sessions, they have hardly been the voice of reason.

For example, here are some of their extreme positions as listed in Wisconsin's Eye on Lobbying database:

• Not only have they been pushing extreme versions of concealed carry for years but they have also promoted and are currently lobbying for so-called "Castle Doctrine" legislation. Feeding an apparent Dirty Harry obsession, this legislation would allow people to become judge, jury, and executioner if an intruder enters their home or business. It wouldn't matter if the intruder was unarmed and it wouldn't matter if they were not an actual physical threat. You can still shoot to kill with few questions asked afterward. The latest version of this legislation continues to expand this license-to-kill. Apparently it now even covers someone "breaking into" your driveway. Recent reports also show that this free pass could continue expanding even further to adjoining sidewalks, business parking lots and farmland.
• They have repeatedly lobbied against legislation that gives law enforcement more investigative tools, such as requiring microstamping. This opposition continues with a bill in the current legislative session. Mircostamping is a technology that imprints identifying information on bullet cartridges.
• They oppose a current bipartisan bill that would treat a criminal the same if they use an actual firearm or a "facsimile firearm" during the commission of a crime. A "facsimile firearm" includes things like a replica, toy, starter pistol or anything else that could be reasonably perceived as being a real firearm.
• They opposed legislation to prohibit a person convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence to possess a fire arm. Under the legislation, a person that violated that prohibition would be guilty of a felony and subject to a fine of up to $25,000 or up to 10 years in prison or both. This bill sought to create both a new state crime and a revised penalty for an existing crime.
• The NRA opposed legislation that sought to extend the definition of domestic abuse to include harm or the threat of harm to animals that are owned by the petitioner of a domestic abuse restraining order.
• They opposed legislation that required a record search before a handgun was transferred between two individuals (when a firearms dealer was not involved). The legislation only applied to the transfer of firearms in Milwaukee County.
• Opposed bipartisan legislation that increased the penalty for discharging a firearm near a public park, square or an enclosure owned or controlled by a municipality. The legislation sought to increase the fine from up to $25 to up to $1,000. It also sought to increase the possible jail time from 60 days to 90 days.
• The NRA supported legislation that sought to prohibit officials from exercising certain emergency powers during "emergencies resulting from an enemy action or natural or man-made disaster." This legislation specifically sought to limit officials abilities to restrict the possession, transfer, sale, transport, storage, display or use of firearms or ammunition during an emergency.
  

Given the extremists that lead the NRA, it shouldn't be a surprise that they would also lobby for the extreme in Wisconsin and in other state legislatures all across the country. What should be a surprise is how all-too-often obedient legislators and other officials dutifully bow to their extreme pressure.

This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters' mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.

Is this what you signed up for?

Wisconsin has a proud hunting tradition that is embedded in the DNA of our state. So it shouldn't be a surprise that we also have hunters and others that have memberships in various groups that are supposed to focus on their issues. However, I have to wonder if the majority of Wisconsin hunters ever meant to sign up for some of the extremist rhetoric that has been coming out of the National Rifle Association in particular.

The wild and paranoid rantings of many NRA board members has been on the record for some time but thanks to the new website "Meet the NRA" we have much of it posted in one place. Whether it is vigilantism, politically violent rhetoric or other extremist statements, I simply don't accept that the average Wisconsin hunter signed up for any of it.

Now the NRA board seems to be going further in the direction of paranoid conspiracy theories. Recently the National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre got all conspiratorial about President Obama. Check out the video below where he actually cites the President not pushing gun control as the very reason that he's anti-gun. Confused? Yeah, you should be, because it is baseless and it makes no sense. But LaPierre ignores reality and boils it all down to some imagined "conspiracy". Is that really the kind of thing that Wisconsin hunters signed up for?

This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters' mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.

House Bill Targets Local (Gun) Control

Conventional wisdom tells us that conservative policymakers greatly value the idea of "local control". However we increasingly see elected officials proclaiming allegiance to that philosophy while only choosing to actually practice it when it is politically convenient. The latest example of this can be seen in a bill currently making its way through the U.S. House of Representatives. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has accurately named HR 822 as the "Packing Heat on Your Street" bill.

This extreme legislation would force states to allow the carrying of loaded, hidden guns by untrained, out-of-state visitors, even by persons legally barred from possessing guns in the state where the carrying occurs. So much for the sacred conservative idea of "local control". Many legislators that are pushing this bill have tossed aside their normal "local control" mantra and have instead adopted a big federal government one-size-fits-all approach. It is clear that this legislation is more of an appeasement of extremists like those running the NRA than it is about making good public policy.

For many years the State of Wisconsin wisely resisted allowing the concealed carrying of firearms. Unfortunately concealed carry legislation finally passed in Wisconsin earlier this year and the law becomes effective on November 1. While the new law is a major mistake and doesn't have nearly enough protections built into it at least it was only a modified version of the original. That version was even more extreme and promoted the inappropriately named idea of "constitutional carry". Essentially allowing just about everyone to carry concealed weapons anywhere without background checks, training or limits of any kind. Even though the new Wisconsin law backed away from that radical notion, that fact could be rendered mute if HR 822 is passed in Washington, DC.

The new Wisconsin concealed carry law allows local municipalities and businesses to ban concealed firearms in their buildings. They would do this by posting signs declaring that firearms are not allowed. As the November 1 deadline approaches many Wisconsin municipalities, including the state's largest , are quickly establishing those local limits. Likewise the entire University of Wisconsin system and Marquette University are moving to prevent concealed weapons in their buildings.

Businesses are also quickly learning the best way to proceed given the many questions that still remain. Advocacy groups such as the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort (WAVE) are asking concerned members of the public to request that businesses protect their safety by banning hidden guns in their establishments.

However, all of this local work in states like Wisconsin could be totally disregarded if the big federal government declaration that exists in HR 822 actually becomes law. While we wait for members of Congress to decide if they really want to target the allegedly cherished idea of "local control", we are certainly not helpless. The Brady Campaign has a wealth of information on this legislation and the problems that it would pose to our states and to our local communities.

This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters' mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.

Vigilantism on the Agenda

It is already mid-September and we have not seen a single jobs bill passed in the Wisconsin Legislature. Yet they rushed through irresponsible legislation enabling the concealed carrying of guns. In the legislature’s rush to arm the public they shot down most common sense amendments that sought to at least provide sensible limits. Now people can conceal and carry their firearms in places like city parks, the Milwaukee County Zoo and even in taverns and other places that serve alcohol.

The gun-obsessed lobby pushed concealed carry legislation in Wisconsin for years. Now we can all start packing heat but apparently it still is not good enough. Now a “castle doctrine” bill is getting some movement in the legislature. This legislation would allow people to use deadly force if someone breaks into their home or business. It would allow a person to use deadly force whether the intruder was armed or threatening or not.

If the Wisconsin legislature rushes through this new “castle doctrine” bill, what comes next? How far are they willing to go? Many members of our current legislature are clearly under the influence of groups like the National Rifle Association. In fact that powerful influence should perhaps worry us more than anything else. There has been real extremist rhetoric coming out of the leadership of that organization for quite a long time. How much of it will our legislators turn into Wisconsin policy?

Today a new website called Meet the NRA was launched by the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. The site provides a plethora of information on the board members of the NRA. That information includes a disturbing amount of over-the-top vigilante rhetoric. One of the many examples listed includes the crazy rantings of NRA board member Ted Nugent. During Texas Governor Rick Perry’s 2007 inaugural ball Nugent declared, “Remember the Alamo! Shoot 'em! To show you how radical I am, I want carjackers dead. I want rapists dead. I want burglars dead. I want child molesters dead. I want the bad guys dead. No court case. No parole. No early release. I want 'em dead.”

Reasonable Wisconsinites should be concerned that each gun bill in our state legislature seems to be moving closer to the same “shoot ‘em” approach that is expressed in Nugent’s comments. Again, we should be asking exactly how far our lawmakers are willing to go in this dangerous direction? At what point does this become less about actual public safety and more about a base fascination with vigilantism?

This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters' mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.

Speaking of Feeding Gun Paranoia...

Not only does Randy Koschnick like to feed it but so does Fake News:

If so many are willing to feed such paranoia, shouldn't we expect that some crazy person just might act on it?