Bills lack control, restriction of irresponsible gun owners
Originally posted at Dane101.comThe conceal carry bills, as they stand right now, are irresponsible pieces of legislation, allowing gun owners to carry weapons practically whenever and wherever they'd like. Only one proposed bill (of three) would require any training of any kind (two hours' worth), while the other bills lack even that basic need.
In this age of increased paranoia run amok, there's no telling what someone could be capable of under such circumstances. By allowing citizens this right without proper training, we risk a situation where an ill-informed individual may take advantage of a law that could cause potential harm to many around them.
What irks me most about these proposals is the lack of training necessary to carry a concealed weapon. Even state law enforcement agree that more training is necessary to make these bills safer for Wisconsin.
An argument often made in the gun debate is that more guns make people safer. While the evidence suggests that, at the very least, gun ownership doesn't equate violence, it's tough to assume guns necessarily make us safer on their own. These guns are heavily regulated, whether concealed or not, tracked to ensure that the people who use them are found immediately following their use. Guns are safer, it seems, with stronger regulations attached to them.
These bills deregulate guns, making it legal for anyone to conceal their weapon in public places. Any move towards the deregulation of weapons, however, deserves more care than these bills provide, more attention towards what will keep people (and law enforcement) safer rather than what will make gun enthusiasts happy.
If concealed carry is going to become legal in Wisconsin, it should be implemented with more regulation to ensure it's done right. A two hour session on the issue (or no training session at all) isn't enough to keep families safe in our state. Our Republican legislators fail us by disregarding the importance of this matter.
You do realize in Vermont, citizens have always been allowed to conceal carry without a licence or any training?
ReplyDeleteWhen was the last time you heard stories of the war raging in Vermont between untrained, armed citizens? Oh yah, people that carry guns grew up with them and learned from age six how to use them safely.
I love this correlation, because it's always used in arguments to support guns. I'm not against guns, let me start out by saying that, but to assume that gun ownership was somehow responsible for the lack in crime is comparing apples to oranges.
ReplyDeleteIt's similar to this: whenever sales of ice cream go up in major cities, murder rates tend to go up with them. Do the two statistics correlate? Yes, but is that correlation due to any relationship between the two? No.
You said it yourself: the people of Vermont are trained from an early age to handle guns careful and with thoughtfulness. What I'm arguing in this blog post is that we should have proper licensing and training for individuals who want to carry their guns in a concealed fashion.