http://www.kenoshanews.com/news/bear...y_4827061.html
Bearing arms: Gun memo may reopen concealed controversy
BY JOE POTENTE
jpotente@kenoshanews.com
Kenosha-area lawmakers are lining up behind a recent legal opinion confirming the legality of toting unconcealed firearms in public places.
Some even say it could be an entrée to revisit the controversial issue of concealed carry in Wisconsin, though the current political winds in Madison would make that prospect appear unlikely.
State Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen last week issued a memo citing constitutional grounds allowing for the open carrying of firearms, so long as it is done without disturbing the peace and within specified restrictions, such as not taking a gun into a school.
Some have questioned whether that is possible in many settings, particularly in urban areas. Milwaukee authorities have said Van Hollen’s memo will not change the manner in which their officers approach people with guns.
Sen. Robert Wirch, D-Pleasant Prairie, criticized the timing of Van Hollen’s opinion, but he was not about to argue with the content.
“I think the timing was poor, bringing it out right when the 10th anniversary of Columbine was out there,” Wirch said. “But I think that he’s on pretty solid legal grounds with this.”
Wirch said a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning a Washington, D.C., handgun ban, coupled with a 1998 state constitutional amendment that affirmed the right to bear arms in Wisconsin, strengthen Van Hollen’s position. Wirch noted that voters approved the amendment in a statewide referendum.
Enter concealed carry, which has generated controversy in the state Capitol for years.
Wisconsin and Illinois are presently the only two states in the nation that do not allow for some sort of concealed carrying of firearms. The Legislature has twice passed concealed carry bills in recent years, only to see them fall to Gov. Jim Doyle’s vetoes.
“I’m hopeful that perhaps this advisory note will be a catalyst to move the Legislature back to the table to debate this issue and to consider finalizing some laws, in regard to concealed carry,” Sen. Neal Kedzie, R-Elkhorn, said Thursday.
Kedzie said he believes enacting such a law would help put to rest confusion over open carry. Reps. Thomas Lothian, R-Williams Bay, and John Steinbrink, D-Pleasant Prairie, agreed.
“We’ve always been looking for a clean definition of conceal and carry,” Steinbrink said. “We were almost there, and then people started playing games with it, and law enforcement then started having concerns.”
The concealed carry bill that the state considered most recently, in 2006, would have enacted a series of licensing requirements for those who wished to carry a weapon.
Steinbrink found himself in the crosshairs on that issue. After being one of just six Assembly Democrats to support the bill, Steinbrink later reversed course in an unsuccessful GOP-led attempt to override a Doyle veto.
Three years ago, Republicans — typically more inclined toward concealed carry — controlled both houses of the Legislature. Now they control neither.
Kedzie conceded now is not likely the time that a bill could pass. But he said he believes it is inevitable that Wisconsin will one day adopt concealed carry.
In the meantime, Wirch said he is comfortable with the current law that Van Hollen believes allows for open carry.
“If there were problems that came up, I would be willing to look at solutions to those problems,” Wirch said. “But I’m not going to sit here and be hypothetical, if it hasn’t happened.”
Rep. Samantha Kerkman, R-Randall, said she feared the potential repercussions of rolling back open carry. Banning open carry could lead to banning hunting, she said.
“There are a lot of people who responsibly use firearms,” Kerkman said. “We don’t want to prohibit that, but we obviously have to be mindful of people who can be alarmed in certain situations.”
Rep. Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, said he was still digesting Van Hollen’s report, seeking local and state law enforcement agencies’ reactions.
Barca said the opinion caught him by surprise.
“It’s not like we expected him to come out with something and were waiting for it,” Barca said. “It’s just like, all of a sudden, you wake up one morning and look at the paper and say, ‘Now, what is this?’”
