There were 4 main glacial epochs where the continental glacier covered much of North America - the Nebraskan, Kansan, Illinoisan and Wisconsin. Guess they (we) are still in the ice age. Damn!
Lando 
Posted on 06/29/2004 8:05:38 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Four States Holding to 'No Issue' Handgun Laws
6/28/2004
Feature Story
by Dick Dahl
With the recent passage of a "shall issue" handgun law in Ohio, the number of states that have eased restrictions on concealed gun carrying has risen to 35. But in the face of this onslaught, four heartland states are holding fast to their long-time laws that prohibit the carrying of concealed guns by people other than police officers.
Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, and Wisconsin thus far have withstood the gun lobby's efforts to enact shall-issue laws. (They're commonly called "shall issue" laws because they say that the state shall issue concealed-carry permits to qualified applicants-typically those without histories of serious crime or mental illness-who apply for them regardless of whether there is a demonstrated need for protection.) They stand apart not only from the shall-issue states but from the 11 "may issue" states that allow residents to carry concealed handguns if they can demonstrate a need for protection.
Proponents of shall-issue laws contend that they reduce crime, but they usually don't mention the fact that crime has generally been dropping since the early 1990s everywhere in the U.S., including the states that have not passed these laws. Crime data in the four no-issue states show that they are no exception. And meanwhile, Stanford University Law School economist John J. Donohue has conducted an exhaustive study of the effects of all shall-issue states and found that these laws don't reduce crime and may actually increase it.
Nevertheless, the gun lobby has proven highly effective in pushing for passage of liberalized concealed-carry laws, and they have tried hard to achieve success in the four no-issue states. The fact that these states are largely rural with great numbers of hunters makes their success at fending off shall-issue laws all the more noteworthy.
In Illinois, the reason why lawmakers haven't succumbed to the gun lobby on the concealed-carry issue is that it is simply unpalatable politically, according to Thom Mannard, executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence. And he says that public opposition to concealed handguns extends far beyond metropolitan Chicago. "There is just a sense among legislators that concealed carry is not a winnable issue in elections," he says. "People just don't believe that concealed carry leads to greater safety."
Numerous Illinois polls in recent years have shown that citizens oppose concealed carrying of handguns. The most recent poll, conducted in January of this year by a Republican polling firm, Overbrook Research, found that 68 percent of Illinoisans statewide oppose concealed carry. In part, Mannard believes that his organization has a hand in the effort to keep shall-issue laws out of Illinois. "I think we've been successful in educating people about the risks of concealed carry outweighing any perceived benefits," he says.
In Wisconsin, the fight has grown ever tougher, as proponents of concealed carry narrowly lost in their most recent effort to pass a shall-issue law. Governor Jim Doyle vetoed a shall-issue bill that was passed by the state legislature, and after the senate overrode the veto, the assembly failed to do so by one vote in February.
Jeri Bonavia, executive director of the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort, says that her organization worked closely with a variety of others, many of them law-enforcement groups, to oppose the shall-issue bill. The groups did a good job of staying "on message," she says, that "this is not a piece of legislation that is going to decrease crime, as promised, and it's certainly not a piece of legislation that's going to increase personal safety."
Additionally, the opposition from law-enforcement organizations was a critical part of the success in fending off a shall-issue law, but another facet of the effort was to raise the question of what was really motivating the bill's backers, Bonavia says. "We looked at all of the things that had been written in [gun] industry magazines about how concealed carry is the brightest star on the horizon or the little money-making machine," she says. "And that really angered people at a level that the traditional debate didn't. People were ticked off that the industry was coming in here with the intention of making money and selling them these lies about personal safety."
Like Illinois, polls in Wisconsin have shown strong public opposition to shall-issue laws. According to Bonavia, Democrats in Wisconsin are coming to the realization that those poll findings indicate something that is a very strong issue for them. Coupled with their own polls and focus groups, she says, Wisconsin Democrats "are now using concealed carry as their best issue for campaigning and fund raising." Even rural Democrats are now embracing anti-concealed carry as a top campaign issue, she says.
In Kansas, the effort to fend off shall-issue laws has largely focused on making sure that the legislature falls short of necessary override numbers, according to Elizabeth Kinch of Safe State Kansas. In part, she says, the state has been fortunate to have elected moderate governors who aren't eager to sign a bill to allow widespread carrying of concealed guns. After a shall-issue bill passed the legislature in the last session, Governor Kathleen Sebelius vetoed it, stating, "I do not believe the widespread legalization of concealed firearms ... would make Kansans safer. I do not believe allowing people to carry concealed handguns into sporting events, shopping malls, grocery stores, or the workplace would be good public policy. And, to me, the likelihood of exposing children to loaded handguns in their parents' purses, pockets, and automobiles is simply unacceptable." In April, an attempt to override Sebelius' veto of a shall-issue bill fell seven votes short.
Kinch says that keeping concealed carry out of Kansas has been "a real challenge." But she says that most people in Kansas agree with her organization that concealed carry is a bad idea. In recent years, she says, two Kansas State University polls have shown "overwhelming opposition" to shall-issue laws.
Activists in these states say that the task of keeping shall-issue laws from passage is a difficult one, but as Bonavia stated during the recent legislative fight in Wisconsin, "Proponents of (concealed carry) laws claim that concealed weapons will provide individuals with an unparalleled means of self-defense while offering society an effective method of decreasing crime. Experts, scientific evidence, experience, and common sense contradict these claims."
BOOM -
Hmmmm I can find plenty of experts scientific evidence and common sense reasons to support these claims.
If guns are not an effective way to protect against criminals maybe its time we disarm these law enforcement officers who are working to prevent citizens from having the same rights they have.
I'm in Wisconsin and I just pretend that the Constitution still means what it says....so far, so good.
Let's also not forget that the "antis" have blocked the implementation of the CCW permits in the major metropolitan areas of Missouri.
Mark
I'm in Illinois and take the same approach as you.
Hooray for MIZZOURAH which passed "shall issue" this year (via veto override)!
Coming soon to a state near you (hopefully)!
The fact that Wisconsin seems concerned about the same thing should not be surprising. They've developed a thin patina of "Liberal" outlook only in recent years. Otherwise, they are fully Progressive (that is Commie), and would prefer the Negro people to move back down South (or be lynched).
"Experts" are notorious for saying whatever their personal ideology requires them to say and "scientific evidence" can also be used to prove that grass is red and bees can't fly. That leaves experience and common sense, and common sense indicates that criminals prefer helpless victims, while our experience after one year of "shall issue" shows that crimes are stopped by armed citizens, at least once in a while.
The "experts" may say that these incidents are statistically insignificant and scientifically unimportant, but I can tell you that they were not unimportant to the people who were not victims, thanks to their concealed handguns.
Well, that's embarassing. The University of Kansas law school has taken the article off their web site. I'll have to see if I can find it elsewhere.
'nuff said....
There were 4 main glacial epochs where the continental glacier covered much of North America - the Nebraskan, Kansan, Illinoisan and Wisconsin. Guess they (we) are still in the ice age. Damn!
Lando
Wisconsin lacks CCW solely because of Gov. Jim "craps" Doyle (D-Potawatomi Casino). Without his veto and subsequent betrayal, under pressure from Craps, by one of the Rat sponsors of the bill, we would have shall issue CCW.
Good Luck. I hope you don't end up as the test case.
Actually, you may be a good test case, since Hamdan won his case and the Pizza guy apparently lost because he was busted with drugs.
I kind of doubt that. Anyway, it should be interesting to see how many of the anti-CCW folks lose their elections this fall.
Hopefully, Wisconsin will have enough votes to override the RAT governor next year.
I predict that Illinois will be the last state to pass a law permitting private citizens to carry. (If it ever does).
Every time the dems block CCW laws, they lose in the next elections by a larger margin each time.
What happens next is the pro-gun Republicans take over the state. What happens after that, the dems start screaming because the polls misled them. After all, doesn't everyone want gun control < sarcasm >?
I wish either Iowa or Kansas and Nebraska would go shall-issue soon. I'm planning a trip out west next summer, and would really like to travel without worrying about getting arrested.
I don't know about for certain about the other 3 no issue states, but in Nebraska, it the "representative" of the "Negro" population that has kept shall issue from passing. Specifically one State Senator Ernie Chambers, a barber by trade, but a very Red liberal in practice. He's been in the Unicameral since I was in college, and I graduated in the early 1970s, so he's accumulated a lot of power, and he uses it to keep those "Negro" constituents of his disarmed, well the law abiding ones anyway, with a little help from other senators representing urban areas, such as the worst parts of Omaha and Lincoln. The current opposition in all those states comes from the urban areas, Hizzonor Daley in Chicago for example, where not so coincidently most of the "Negro" population lives.
On the national scene the Congressional Black Caucus is steadfastly pro gun control, right up outright confiscation.
Tell me about it, I'm going through Kansas to Nebraska on Saturday. Although since it is legal for me to have a handgun in Nebraska, I can pass through Kansas in compliance with the law by simply unloading the gun and putting it in the trunk, and transporting it in Nebraska the same way. I've been traveling that route at least once a year, and usually more often, since I bought my first handgun, and I amost always take it. (My father in law, who lives there, is the one that got me hooked on handguns, I'd been a strictly shotgunner in my youth and until the early 80s.) Even before Texas passed CHL and got reciprocity with Oklahoma, although in those days the guns made the entire trip in the trunk.
I recently made a trip to Nebraska, on my way through Kansas it was on my person, loaded, as it was most of the time I was in Nebraska, It won't do any good in the trunk, if I need it.
The voters better remember what that SOB Shermen did to them and send his butt packing this fall.
The only way they can keep that money coming and to empower the preachers is to keep guns out of the hands of the lawabiding common man.
It's a vicious circle.
Sherman is the key and I can't wait until they vote him out of office. The dems continue to delude themselves with the slanted polls. They really believe the voters want gun control.
I hope the Republican Party continues to take full advantage of the CCW Bills. This is only the first round. Just wait until they start pushing a "Vermont, no restrictions" on the other states.
Just don't speed or something and you can carry it up front, loaded without a worry.
We came darn close to getting one this year, but fell just short.
Darn Dem governor and "moderate" Republicans. We have got to get more conservatives in the state legislature.
The proposal to ban gay marriage also failed just barely for the same reason.
Gay marriage is already illegal in KS, but the proposal was a Constitutional amendment that failed just barely due to all the dang RINOs.
What happened with Hamdan and the pizza guy? I would like to have cites. Thanks.
Exactly right!
http://www.wisbar.org/res/sup/2003/01-0056.htm
The other case was the State V. Cole, which was not so clear cut, since Cole was arrested to possession and two handguns were found in his vehicle following the arrest. Cole initially pled guilty and was sentenced to 30 days work release for the pot possession and 60 day work release for the CCW violation. http://www.wisbar.org/res/sup/2003/01-0350.htm
I fear that CCW issues will get worse with Diane Sykes leaving the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the Federal Bench.
Thanks. I had no idea the gun control there was so bad.
i think its a very good ideal to ask!! a policeman, why he carry,s a gun ? and do it every time you see one!! right he,s badge numser down, and list there commit.
BTTT
There's a blast from the past. Join Together's gun grabbing department no longer exists. The funding dried up. :)
Ah, some good news...
bang -ping! bang!
Is it any easier for a 'normal person' to carry in Massachusetts than in Illinois? It seems to me the distinction between 'no issue' and 'may issue' isn't really significant. In Illinois, a person can get a carry permit if they become a bona fide licensed private detective. I'm not aware of any political connections being necessary to do that, although the expense and bother would mean few people would do so. What about in Massachusetts?
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