GOP lawmaker suggests citizens should become vigilantes
A conservative lawmaker in Wisconsin says that, since we
don’t have the death penalty in the state, citizens should take it upon
themselves to “help clean our society of [the] scumbags” that perpetrate crime.
No,
really. And Rep. Bob Gannon (R-Slinger) goes on to say that, since “criminals
no longer have any fear of our courts or our prisons,” it’s “time that the
citizens of this fine state stand up and fight back.”
These remarks come in response to a
shooting at East Towne Mall in Madison last week. Gannon, who supports
concealed carry so fervently that he refuses “to spend my money at any business
that believes my second amendment rights have to be left in my car,” penned
a snarky and spiteful press release (PDF) simply titled, “Hole Shot into
Gun Free Zone Theory.”
“A gang banger in the mall with a gun is going to think
twice if there could be a law abiding
CCW holder standing behind them fully prepared to shoot
center mass,” he writes.
It’s the fantasy of many concealed carry holders that
they can defend a large population of shoppers/church-goers/college
students/etc. if only they were allowed to carry their guns everywhere. Yet the
facts fly in the face of this imagined scenario: active-shooter incidents rarely end with another citizen using their
gun to stop a criminal.
In fact, according
to FBI statistics that have studied active-shooter situations (PDF), a
person without a gun is more likely
to stop a shooter than someone with a
gun. Thirteen percent of active-shooter situations studied by the FBI ended with
someone using means besides a gun to end the situation. Conversely, in only
three percent of all active-shooter situations did a “good guy with a gun”
actually stop a “bad guy” with a gun.
“But so what?” many will ask. Surely, Gannon is right
that having more guns will stop more criminals, resulting in less crimes in the
state overall.
However, that’s not what we’re currently seeing. According to FBI
crime stats since concealed carry was implemented in the state, violent
crime has gone up in Wisconsin by 22 percent.
That’s not to say that concealed carry was responsible
for that rise in crime -- but it has
failed to make us safer, as proponents like Gov. Scott
Walker promised it would in 2011.
It’s not just in Wisconsin. In Missouri, where the state
relaxed stringent gun laws starting in 2007, gun
homicides increased by 16 percent. And in South Dakota, where the 48-hour
gun waiting period was rescinded in 2009, suicides
also went up by 16 percent statewide.
Bob Gannon worries that the lack of a death penalty doesn’t
deter crime in our state. He’s wrong in this assumption as well: the death penalty doesn’t deter crime
any better in states where it’s carried out. Here’s another instance where the
facts go against his rhetoric: in every year since at least 1991, states
with the death penalty had higher rates of murder than states without it.
Gannon is trying to sound tough and act “Trumpish” with
his insistence that criminals can be stopped if citizens simply arm up. But in
Wisconsin, we
adhere to the principles of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution just as
much as the Second Amendment. And that means that citizens deserve due process
of law -- not a system that requires citizen vigilantes to become judge, jury,
and executioners, as Gannon is seemingly advocating.
In my Wisconsin neighborhood the criminals causing the most harm are elected Republicans. Rep. Gannon should consider other perspectives before he opens his trap. (Which, of course, he has already done by the time I am writing this.)
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