"Fascist Pre-Crime runs afoul state's inability to take rights away prior citizen felony-conviction. Impedes march of Nazi rule in America!"
AKA
Milwaukee police call for concealed-carry changes
Habitual criminals would be targeted
Milwaukee police are asking state legislators and gun rights activists to back three proposals police say would repair Wisconsin's concealed-carry law - among them: barring people with three misdemeanor convictions in five years from obtaining a concealed-carry permit.
The purpose of the changes would be to prevent repeat criminals from carrying guns, and stiffen penalties for those who do.
But one of Wisconsin's most prominent gun rights organizations says the proposals are too broad and could make it more difficult for law-abiding people to exercise their constitutional right to defend themselves with guns.
Police say they see three main problems with the existing law, which took effect in November and made Wisconsin the 49th state to allow concealed carry:
First, straw purchases - buying a firearm for someone who is prohibited from possessing a firearm - are a misdemeanor on a state level, not a felony as they are on a federal level.
Second, the requirements for a gun permit ignore the reality of plea bargains. Many habitual criminals legally qualify for, and could obtain, a concealed-carry permit because they were never convicted of a felony for which they were charged.
"Many of our career criminals don't have a felony conviction," explained Joel Plant, chief of staff with the Milwaukee Police Department. "They've been arrested for felonies, they've been charged with felonies, but because of necessity of the criminal justice process - and this is not a disparaging comment on the prosecution process or the judicial process - but because of necessity in our system, a lot of those felonies, many of those felonies, most of those felonies, are pled down to misdemeanor convictions."
Habitual criminals, Plant said, can carry a concealed gun with impunity from a potential of a felony charge unless they fire their guns.
Nik Clark of Wisconsin Carry, a gun rights group, said the problem seems to lie with the criminal justice system rather than the law.
"If he's got a problem, he needs to go talk to the (district attorney) and say, 'Why are you plea-bargaining these down to a misdemeanor that should otherwise be felonies?' That's a problem the DA needs to address," Clark said. "If these are serious offenses, they shouldn't be plea-bargained out. If you're not going to utilize the laws that exist, don't come asking for new laws that have the potential to infringe on the rights of law-abiding (people)."
Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn said that because there is not enough court or jail space for every bad guy caught by police, plea bargains are necessary in urban jurisdictions.
The third problem, police say, is that regardless of how many times people carry concealed without a permit - illegally - the offense never rises above a misdemeanor.
"The sanctions they face are not significant," Flynn said. "No matter how many times they are caught with that gun, the charge is a misdemeanor. It's a misdemeanor for the first offense, it's a misdemeanor for a 10th offense. That's why I say they're more afraid to get caught without their gun than with their gun."
Police would like to change the permitting requirements and prohibit what the statute already defines as "habitual offenders" from getting a permit. A habitual offender is someone convicted of three misdemeanors in five years.
But Clark said the change is "exceptionally broad." He said police should specify which misdemeanors they would like to be considered when issuing gun permits.
"There's a whole bunch of things that are misdemeanors," Clark said. "Some of them I don't think are things that should preclude people from having the right to self-defense. There's a protester in Madison. He's protesting Governor Walker and he gets a ticket for obstruction. That's a misdemeanor. Let's say someone is very active politically and they want to go protest but when they do so three times - you know, politically active season here in Milwaukee and in Madison - and three times someone gets a disorderly conduct or a disturbing the peace, or any of those misdemeanors."
Clark said that, if the changes police request are enacted, law-abiding carriers could unknowingly or accidentally lose their right to carry.
"There's no other constitutional right where you're so close and have to dot every i and cross every t, where you're that close to ensnaring yourself unknowingly with a crime as the right to carry," Clark said. "The way (Flynn) describes these laws, it's just more of taking felonies and backing them right up to your constitutional rights.
"If they're not a felon and they want to turn that into a felony, it's turning Wisconsin into a police state instead of a state where people's rights are respected."
As far as making straw purchases a felony on a state level, Clark said that he doubts it would keep criminals from obtaining guns, but that his organization "wouldn't have any objections" because it's already a federal felony.
Flynn said that because the legislative session is coming to a busy end and it's an election year, he's not optimistic any changes could be made to the law this year. He added that when he makes statements about the concealed-carry law in public, police tend to get lots of "emails from people who only know how to type in capital letters and using exclamation points," but that once the dust settles he hopes to educate people on the importance of making the three changes.
"They have zero impact on the angry email writers," he said. "But they can have a direct impact on our crime rate if they are enacted."
