DATE:December 6, 2005
TO:Senate Majority Leader, Dale Schultz
Assembly Speaker, John Gard
Members of the Wisconsin Legislature
FROM:Kathleen M. Falk, Dane County Executive
RE:Opposition to SB 403/AB 763 (License to Carry a Concealed Weapon)
I write to respectfully ask you to oppose SB 403/AB 763. This bill has several specific problems, which I will describe in some detail, but it also has a major flaw. Its premise that allowing lots of people to carry concealed guns just about anywhere, anytime will improve public safety is false. The bill will improve the chances for tragic, life-threatening, life-taking mistakes.
The first major problem with the bill occurs in that section which lists those places where concealed guns will still be prohibited. Many public facilities are not listed. Examples in Dane County would include the Alliant Energy Center and the Henry Vilas Zoo.
Last year, 503,314 people visited the Henry Vilas Zoo. At many times of the year, such as Halloween, the Zoo is filled with people, mostly families with small children. Gunfire in such a setting could create a panic and easily lead to a crush of people trying to escape and hurting themselves and many others in the process. The Alliant Energy Center (AEC) hosts events ranging from concerts, rodeos, wrestling, monster truck/car shows, home shows, circuses, the County Fair, and World Dairy Expo. The safety of those event goers is jeopardized because your bills allow weapons to be concealed and carried into these events. At many of these you already have the mixture of high excitement and alcoholic beverages. Adding guns to that mix is a bad idea. Furthermore, the AEC or the event promoter provides police or private security to maintain public safety. Concealed guns will not help that effort either.
According to SB 403 and AB 763, weapons can be concealed and carried in county buildings that house human service programs, transportation, public works, child support, public safety and county parks. The only way to keep weapons out of a public facility is to “provide electronic screening for weapons at all public entrances to the building and for the locked storage of weapons on the premises.” Many of our human service programs are located throughout the county in order to more conveniently serve citizens. But this variety of facilities would make it cost prohibitive to add such screening to these facilities (and most counties could choose that option under the property tax freeze only by cutting other services).
What are we trying to accomplish by having concealed guns in a child support office or a juvenile shelter where people face difficult decisions, are often emotionally distraught, and occasionally upset with the public employees running those facilities?
Finally, while I appreciate the efforts of the authors to address some of law enforcement’s valid concerns, those attempts have failed as is evidenced by the recent letters from the police chiefs’ and sheriffs’ organizations. And it is an outrageously bad idea to potentially criminalize the conduct of police officers who would use the provisions of the new amendment to check whether certain people were carrying permitted, concealed weapons.
Please oppose SB 403 and AB 763 and maintain the public safety of the citizens of Dane County and across the state of Wisconsin.
Thank you for your consideration of this request.
cc:Dane County Legislative Delegation
Dane County Sheriff Gary Hamblin
Dane County Board of Supervisors
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