Doyle Unveils Draft of Comprehensive Gun Control Plan

By James E. Fendry

On August 21, 2007, Wisconsin Governor James Doyle held a press conference inside the 3^rd District police station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In that setting, he introduced his six-point agenda on new gun controls for the dairy state. He claimed that all of these proposals are in drafting and will be introduced during the fall of the year (by that he means when most of the opposition has gone hunting).

1) Doyle said he wants to establish twenty-one as the minimum age at which a person can buy a handgun. Why would he pursue that when it is already a federal law? I am told he wants the bill to ultimately read age twenty-one for all firearms. One legislator feels the bill may actually specify that age before a person could possess any gun without parental supervision, with certain exceptions included.

2) Doyle said he wanted the law changed so that when a person is adjudicated dangerous or mentally incompetent, the identity of that individual should be shared with the FBI so that individual would not be able to easily acquire a firearm by passing a background check. A federal bill which does exactly that (HR 2640) is already underway in Washington, DC, and the NRA-ILA has given it their support.

3) Doyle wants any person convicted of a misdemeanor involving a gun to be prohibited from ever possessing a gun in Wisconsin for the rest of his or her life. So if you have ever been convicted of shooting after closing hours, trespassing while hunting, or even drunk driving while an unloaded, cased shotgun was locked in your trunk, that would mean you could not even touch a gun for the rest of your life!

4) Doyle wants every gun – including shotguns – to be subject to “ballistic fingerprinting” with a fired bullet and/or a fired casing to be put on file with the Department of Justice, and you – the gun owner – have to pay for it, not the taxpayers! While costing tens of millions of dollars, not a single crime has been solved in Maryland or California with this database! Nothing stops Governor Doyle from attacking and taxing gun owners.

5) Doyle wants to repeal firearms pre-emption in order to allow Milwaukee to have unique gun laws, allegedly to address the seemingly hourly shootings that take place in Milwaukee’s high-crime areas after dark. Do you remember the early 1990s prior to pre-emption when then-Mayor Soglin of Madison passed four draconian ordinances, including one that stipulated a fine of one thousand dollars ($1,000) for each soft-point or hollow-point bullet in your possession? Back then, if a hunter got caught with a full box of 30-30s, the fine was $20,000! Don’t forget Milwaukee’s handgun ban!

6) Doyle claims he wants to close the supposed “gun show loophole” so that every person at a gun show is subject to a background check when they buy a gun at a gun show. Doyle already had this bill introduced by Senator Coggs of Milwaukee, and it is known as SB-104. However, this bill deals not just with sales at gun shows but all transfers of possession, even if just for a few seconds, everywhere in Wisconsin. Furthermore, unless the transferor is a FFL dealer, then both the transferor and the transferee must first pay a FFL dealer to complete a background check before even a momentary transfer can legally take place. This prohibition would include leaving your handgun with your wife, or just picking up and shooting your friend’s gun at a shooting range, or even just picking it up, because that alone is a transfer of possession!

If you think that Doyle can’t get all of these proposals passed into law, then you are right. There is not a chance, no matter what happens. However, he might get one – or possibly two – turned into law. If so, we’ll get those bills amended and watered down, but they still might pass in some negative form.

In just a couple zip codes in the city of Milwaukee, criminals are shooting other criminals and/or victimized citizens at such a rapid rate that the police hear gunfire all night long every night on which it is not raining or snowing! Every day in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, there are short columns on some (that’s some, not all, because such events have become just too common for the paper to report each and every incident) of the people who were killed or wounded the night before. Due to the vast numbers of shootings, cases of people being hit in their homes by stray bullets coming through the walls, or stray bullets in the streets, are starting to become commonplace, as well.

Always remember, however, that 99 percent or more of the people who live there are honest, law-abiding citizens who are unable to move out of that war zone. For a variety of reasons, many have been denied a decent education. Many struggle to survive where jobs even for the most qualified are seldom available. Many jobs that are available pay only minimum wage. These people live in zip codes where the streets at night are rife with gangs, crime crews, and drug dealers. Additionally, people who cooperate with the police against these criminals often become the target of those same criminals seeking retribution.

If the violence and the shootings get much worse, then the anti-gun legislators who prostitute this tragedy for their own agenda are finally going to convince enough of the pro-gun Democrats and Republicans to let some of this legislation pass. Furthermore, even amended versions of Doyle’s proposals or the loss of pre-emption will begin the erosion of our firearms rights. Fortunately, our American system of government will work if YOU are willing to do something!

Telephone or write – it’s far better than e-mail – your State Senator (not Kohl or Feingold) and your State Representative (not your Congressman) and tell them your feelings. Do this even if you think you know that they will vote pro-gun! Ask for a return communication. Your Town or City Clerk will have the legislators’ phone numbers. Make sure you’re registered to vote, because they often check to see if YOU do vote!

Then mail an affordable check to support the pro-gun fight in our state (checks payable to the Wisconsin Pro-Gun Movement can be sent to P.O. Box 513, Greendale, Wisconsin 53129 – see also the contact information under WRPA Legislative Advisor on page 2 of the Hunter-Marksman) or to the NRA-ILA in Fairfax, Virginia. I know you want us there to fight for you and hopefully to win every battle as we have in the past, but who do you think will pay for all the phone calls, traveling, lodging, printing, mailings, office equipment, transportation (even parking meters), et cetera if you’re not willing to help? When all the “sound and fury” is over, your fate is still determined by what you decide to do!

Jim Fendry is director of the Wisconsin Pro-Gun Movement and Legislative Advisor to the WRPA.