Doyle’s Anti-Liberty Firearm Proposals

I see that Governor Doyle is back to his anti-gun mania.  Let’s take a look:

Gov. Jim Doyle today said he will propose closing the so-called “gun show loophole” as part of an anti-crime package he will present to the Legislature this fall.

The move would prohibit people who are not federally licensed firearms dealers from selling weapons at gun shows, typically without a background check.

This proposal would essentially ban all private sales of firearms.  If a private person wanted to sell a firearm, he or she would have to go through a licensed dealer, and the buyer would have to submit to a background check. This would make it incredibly difficult to privately sell guns and would also substantially add to the cost of privately selling a gun.  Furthermore, it would do nothing about crime.  A crook who is buying or selling a gun for the purpose of criminal activity is not going to bother abiding by this law.

*Allowing Wisconsin to contribute information to a national database that help increase monitoring of individuals who have been civilly committed or prohibited by a court from using a firearm. This would prevent people from traveling to a state where their background is unavailable to purchase a firearm and coming back to Wisconsin to commit a crime, Doyle said.

I’m OK with this proposal.

*Rolling back a 1995 law that erased all local ordinances related to firearms. Doyle said it kept municipalities and counties from enacting any new laws that would be more restrictive than state statutes.

This proposal is a recipe for disaster.  Right now, no local unit of government can make a firearms law that is more restrictive than state law.  This proposal would obliterate that to allow cities like Milwaukee, Madison, or anywhere else to make their firearms laws more restrictive. 

Let me provide an example for how this could adversely effect law-abiding citizens.  If I want to drive to Waukesha to go to a shooting range with some friends, I have to drive through about 8 different municipalities to get there: West Bend, Jackson, Germantown, Menomonee Falls, Milwaukee, Wauwatosa, Brookfield, and Waukesha.  Perhaps I’ll take my Winchester Defender 1200, which has an 18-inch barrel, my Springfield 1903 30-06, which is a war rifle from WW1, and my S&W .357 for a little fun.  What if each of the 8 communities has different laws?  Perhaps Milwaukee has banned handguns, thus rendering the mere possession of my .357 illegal.  And maybe Wauwatosa declares any shotgun with a barrel under 22 inches to be an “assault weapon” and I can’t have that.  And maybe Milwaukee requires firearms to be transported in a locked case while everywhere else allows firearms to be transported in a case merely closed by a zipper.  How is a simple law-abiding citizen supposed to comply with the law?  It is an unreasonable burden to expect a citizen to research the ordinances of every single municipality through which he might want to travel for the simple exercise of his constitutional right to keep and bear arms.  

*Tracking guns used in multiple crimes by requiring ballistic fingerprinting, matching the marks made by a bullet when fired from a gun with marks on the inside of the barrel of the gun. He said that would create a trail for law enforcement to track down both guns and criminals.

This one isn’t as onerous as it is unnecessary and useless.  It creates an expense for the manufacturer to register each individual weapon which will be passed on to the buyer.  At the same time, it does nothing but provide law enforcement with a starting place for tracking down a firearm.  Yet, ballistic fingerprinting and a record of the initial buyer of the firearm do not constitute evidence of guilt that anyone in particular committed a crime with the weapon.  I’m not completely opposed to this provision.  The cost is relatively small and it is a marginally helpful record for law enforcement, I’m just not convinced that the benefit outweighs the cost. 

*Prohibiting possession or purchase of a gun by anyone who has been convicted of a misdemeanor that involved a firearm.

This is another horrible proposal.  Think of all of the misdemeanors that could involve a firearm: illegally transporting a firearm; possession of a concealed firearm; illegal discharge of a firearm; etc.  To think that someone could be permanently deprived of their right to keep and bear arms for an offense as simple as accidentally leaving a shell in a firearm while transporting it is reprehensible.  This proposal would create a lifetime ban on the possession of firearms - something that has traditionally been reserved for felonies.

*Banning the sale of handguns to people under 21, except for licensed purposes or weapons passed down through families, such as hunting heirlooms.

I don’t know what the heck is up with this one.  It is my understanding that it is already illegal for anyone under 21 to purchase a handgun.  I’ll look it up when I have some time, but can anyone confirm this? 

In any case, Doyle is continuing his effort to appeal to the anti-gun left with horrible proposals that curtail the freedoms of law-abiding gun owners while doing nothing to fight crime.

Posted by Owen at 1933 hrs
Firearms + Politics + Politics - Wisconsin