Concealed Carry Comes to Wisconsin…Finally!

And now a personal rant…

Well it has finally happened—the Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, has signed into law that citizens of the state of Wisconsin can conceal a weapon provided they are issued a permit to do so. This has been a long time coming for the state of Wisconsin since it was only one of two states that did not have a law allowing it (Illinois as the other) and one many of our legislators have been working on for 16 years.

When I moved here from Pennsylvania not carrying a handgun was something I had to adjust to. In Pennsylvania I carried it on my hip everywhere. Many people might ask why that is necessary…well the reasons are numerous.

1. The constitution of the United States guarantees me this right based upon the second amendment.
2. Self-defense…It is a God given right to be able to defend yourself and your family (for more on this see Uncle Ted at the end of this post).
3. Piece of mind…because you just never know what sort of situation you will find yourself in.

A lot of people, whom I would say are uninformed, typically have some rebuttal along the lines of how many more guns are going to be on the street and how it will only drive crime rates up. In an editorial of the Green Bay Press Gazette they summarized this mentality well by saying:

The criminal is always going to have the gun; they’re never going to get a permit for it…But law abiding citizens now have the opportunity to legally get a permit and will be able to protect themselves in a situation that may arise (in a way) that they haven’t been able to do in the past.

As of right now there are still plenty of unknowns; where can you not carry, how does one get a permit, to what extent is training required, etc. A few things we do know; (1) Wisconsin is going to be a “shall issue” state, meaning that if the person applying is not a felon or mentally incapacitated then the state must issue a permit and (2) the law officially goes into effect on November 1 (happy birthday to me). I’ll be heading to an NRA meeting toward the end of the month to learn more about how the new law is going to go into effect.

The new law is not perfect, most aren’t. Ideally there would be no permit required. Vermont, as liberal as that state is, is to my knowledge the only state that doesn’t require permits to carry a concealed weapon. For more on the mentality of the second amendment and permits I leave you with a video from Uncle Ted.