Posted on 08/08/2007 1:47:13 PM PDT by The Shadow Knows
Wayne Rausch says Moscow - not to mention UI campus - would be safer places if more qualified people were packing
MOSCOW - With 540 persons carrying concealed weapons permits in Latah County, Sheriff Wayne Rausch said Tuesday he wouldn't mind if more applied and qualified to carry guns.
That includes on the campus of the University of Idaho.
"In my opinion, if there were more students with CPWs, the world would be safer," Rausch said. He pointed out virtually anyone can carry a weapon in plain sight.
People who seek concealed weapons permits, the sheriff said, are rarely a problem. They're screened and generally pack firearms within limits of the law. "Most of those are good citizens," said Rausch, who is the only law enforcement officer in the county with the authority to issue concealed weapons permits.
"Just because we (law enforcement officers) are charged with protecting the public, doesn't mean the public shouldn't be able to protect itself," Rausch said.
His words come on the heels of Moscow Mayor Nancy Chaney seeking a legal opinion about whether city officials can restrict firearms on city property. If Chaney and other officials opt to outlaw guns in public buildings and parks, Rausch said, they better be ready to spend the dollars for enforcement. Otherwise, like at the Latah County Courthouse, the prohibition would be toothless.
"We don't have any system in the courthouse to back up the ban on guns," Rausch said. He said prohibition signs outside the doors work for law abiding citizens, but not for those intent on circumventing the law.
"The bad guy is going to go right through the door."
If county and city officials are serious about banning guns on public property, the sheriff said, they must follow the lead of the federal government. Otherwise any new ordinances would be little more than feel-good measures. All persons entering the federal building here in Moscow, for example, must walk through a metal detector and are subject to search, Rausch said. Not so at the courthouse, city hall or any other public building in the county.
A Moscow man, for example, spoke at Monday's city council meeting against a ban on weapons. David Klingenberg, who has a conceal weapons permit and said he was carrying a handgun at the meeting, said an armed citizenry is a safer citizenry.
"When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away," Klingenberg, 36, told Chaney and members of the city council. "I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy."
Another Moscow resident, 33-year-old Sean Wilson, recently questioned whether UI has authority to prohibit weapons on campus. "It's really sort of rattled the cages a little," Rep. Tom Trail, R-Moscow, said about Wilson's challenge of the university ban.
Despite the tragedy in May when gunman Jason Hamilton shot up the courthouse and killed four people, including himself, Rausch said he and his deputies don't think more laws will result in less crime.
Sgt. Brannon Jordon, who was shot by Hamilton and is still recovering, agreed with the sheriff.
"When I make contact with a person, I like to be the only one with a gun," Jordon said. But only once, he said, has he had problems with a person carrying a concealed weapons permit. That person, Jordon said, vowed he wouldn't surrender the gun if ordered. Nothing more came of the incident and in all other dealings with permit holders, Jordon said, people complied with his requests to simply not introduce the gun into the moment at hand.
"We don't try to take anyone's gun from them," Rausch said of contacts with people who have valid concealed weapons permits.
The sheriff said there was no big increase in applications for permits after the Hamilton incident, nor has there been a surge in the wake of other shooting deaths in the county this summer.
People seeking a concealed weapons permit must go to the sheriff's office and fill out a one-page application that includes a series of questions that focus mostly on criminal background. According to the application, persons prohibited from receiving a permit include fugitives from justice, unlawful drug users, people who've been adjudicated as having a mental defect or who have been committed to a mental institution, people convicted of a crime calling for a prison sentence of one year or more, people indicted for a crime punishable by one or more years in prison, dishonorably discharged military veterans, people who renounce their U.S. citizenship, aliens illegally in the country, people subject to various restraining orders, and people convicted of domestic violence.
A fee of $56 is charged and the application may take up to 90 days to be processed.
For him, Rausch said, the application in some respects is confusing and ambiguous and leaves him with a lot of discretion he doesn't necessarily want. If lawmakers are serious about a need to impose more gun restrictions, Rausch said, they need to first clean up current laws and then enforce them with vigorous prosecution.
"As one of the founding fathers said, 'The government that doesn't trust me with guns, I don't trust that government,'" Rausch said.
Sounds like Clint. Kudos to him!
LOL!!!
I like it.
“When I make contact with a person, I like to be the only one with a gun,” Sgt. Jordon said.
Excellent.
An armed society is a polite society.
I sent the following to several papers in Idaho
This morning I read an article in a local paper titled “Moscow Mayors Memo Versus Armed Citizen”, and have a few talking points on the article. I don't mean to ramble & I am not ashamed to admit I am not the most eloquent speaker. I believe, along with many others, that we, or any human for that matter, have a fundamental right to self-preservation & self-defense. Since we are higher than the common animal and we do have the ability to make and use tools, it would make sense that the best tool for such an endeavor would be a personal firearm.
I do own firearms, I am not a stereotypical "gun nut" and I deplore such labels, labeling each other is a sign of ignorance. I am a licensed concealed carrier, and I do legally carry my sidearm where I am allowed to do so. I am just your average law abiding family guy living on the Palouse with my wife and young children.
This may be my own interpretation of what is going on, but it seems the Mayor of Moscow wants to “paint” law abiding firearms owners with “a very broad brush”, and lawful firearms owners will understand what I mean by that statement.
The Mayors statement about “wondering if someone who has an opposing viewpoint is armed” seems to be grasping at heartstrings as a tool to spread fear among those who do not understand the relevance of the situation or to the general public who are overly emotional in their reactions.
Such statements only serve to elicit a quick and sometimes even irrational response, the over zealous but uninformed may decide to "jump on to the band wagon" regardless of the consequences.
Personally, I could not fathom such a barbaric act of using my legally carried personal sidearm to menace someone with an opposing viewpoint, doing so would be quite childish, irresponsible, immoral and illegal.
The mayor appears to be applying “projectionism”, whereby she projects her fear of an inanimate object onto those who may have similar fears of an inanimate object.
The Mayor said the shooting at the courthouse made her concerned about how vulnerable people and city employees were. Wouldn't this be all the more reason to allow residents and city employees the legal right to be armed rather than unarmed?
City residents and employees for that matter do have the right to legally carry their own sidearm for self-defense and the right to use it under certain situations.
We can also face the fact that the Mayor also has the privilege of having an entire Police force to defend her, because lets face the truth, the Mayor or any other city official's call will have precedence over any average citizens will, the Mayor even has an armed entourage at council meetings when the Chief of Police or the Sheriff or one of the employees of said law enforcement agencies attends her conferences.
Shouldn't the average resident or city employee be able to have the same privilege/right or is self-defense to be the explicit privilege of the “Elite Ruling Class”. That may sound harsh but it does somehow ring true if the City of Moscow is allowed to go ahead with passing of such a hollow law.
I remember reading the following regarding a hollow law; "At Virginia Tech the law did not protect the innocent, as to a criminal, a law is only writing on a piece of paper."
With that said, I therefore must oppose her view and inquiry as to the implementation of a law that would ban firearms on “City Property”; after all, criminals rarely live within the boundaries of such laws in the first place.
I can only hope that if the City of Moscow does indeed find a way to implement such hollow laws, that they will put the issue to a public ballot whereby the residents, all of the residents, of the City of Moscow can cast their vote, after all, that way all parties concerned will have a fair say about the outcome, as opposed to a forced outcome from the City of Moscow’s very own “Star Chamber”.
But "feel good" measures are the dogma of liberal society.
Politically it is a powerful tool!
TSK, I like your login!
It could make for a most formidable and interesting home page. ; )
Excellent!
My email to the mayor:
Dear Mayor Chaney,
May I suggest that Moscow put up Welcome signs at the main entrances. These signs could also have a map of Moscow showing the public areas where guns will not be allowed.
This will tell the law abiding citizens where they are not allowed to carry. This will also tell the criminals where they can expect to be able to rob people without any resistance. This way they can rob with or without guns because they will not be obeying any of the laws anyway.
The college campus that just had so many students and professors killed also proudly advertised that no guns were allowed on their campus. Funny, the killer didn’t obey that law either.
If the government doesn't trust it's people with guns, then the people are no longer the government.
Nance seems to be under the impression that this is New York City and her last name is Bloomberg. It doesn't work that way. She came to us via Seattle and San Francisco according to her home page. It shows.
Thank you. Would love to do a home page but no time. Have a business to run.
I know the feeling when it comes to time. ; (
Nothing like a criminal looking for a victim, and knowing that any number of them might legally be carrying a gun - maybe bigger and badder than his own!!!
Trusting government is never the issue; nor should it ever become the issue. Why should you trust government? The government does not trust government. America’s Constitution established a government with checks and balances. Trust was clearly not the goal.
To love one's country is patriotic; to trust one's government, any government anywhere, is just plain folly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.