Posted on 07/01/2002 7:02:14 AM PDT by drc43
The lone chair across the table from members of the Kent County gun board is known as the hot seat.
But when Mark Gelders recently sidled up to ask permission to carry a concealed weapon, it barely got warm.
Thanks to the state's nearly year-old CCW law, Gelders left with a permit in less than a minute -- one of more than 2,000 issued by the county's gun board in the last year. Under the old law, he would have walked away empty-handed.
"I'm under the belief that if more people are carrying weapons, there will be less crime," said Gelders, 51, of Ada Township, who carries his handgun for protection while traveling and on his boat.
Not far away in Grand Haven, 27-year-old Mark Vitunskas also expected a quick-and-easy CCW permit as he sat before the Ottawa County gun board in May. He had spent $100 to take the required weapons training and $60 to apply.
"No," he reassured the gun board when asked if he had any felony convictions.
Then, Vitunskas was taken by surprise.
"Looking at your application, it shows you have a life-preserver violation," said Ottawa County Assistant Prosecutor Gregory Babbitt, who ran the meeting.
Vitunskas sank in his chair as he recalled fishing for catfish on the Grand River in June 2001 with two buddies on his 10-foot, flat-bottom boat. He said he didn't know it was a misdemeanor when he signed the DNR ticket for having two life jackets instead of three.
The board denied his request.
"All I want to do is protect myself and my family," Vitunskas said later.
The state's concealed weapons law, which makes it easier for law-abiding citizens to carry hidden handguns, turns a year old on Monday..
As the number of state residents with permission to pack is expected to reach 100,000 this summer -- a fourfold increase from the previous year -- a Press study of the law's impact found that the anniversary isn't being celebrated by everybody.
The Press found that:
Some applicants complain they are unfairly excluded for minor infractions, including driving with an expired license plate. A Grand Haven man was denied because he pruned a tree while deer hunting in a federal forest -- a misdemeanor. About one in every 100 requests statewide are denied.
Gun boards in Kent and Ottawa counties have issued nearly 3,100 permits -- a thirtyfold increase since 1997 -- but area residents are among the least likely to seek a permit. Kent ranks 78th among the state's 83 counties in the number of permits issued per 10,000 people. Ottawa County is ranked 70th, with 1,000 permits issued, a Press analysis of state police data shows.
White men are leading the charge for permits. Across the state, eight of every 10 applicants were white males. Even in Wayne County, where minorities make up about half the population, two-thirds of the applicants were white men.
So far, Michigan hasn't turned into the Wild, Wild West. State police said they were aware of one permit-holder from the Upper Peninsula charged with waving around a handgun, a misdemeanor. Nearly 62,000 people statewide have applied for a CCW permit through early June.
"It's gone exactly the way I thought it would go," said former state Rep. Michael Green, who sponsored the CCW bill. "No shoot-outs in the streets, no I-75 blow-outs, nobody trying to be cops. It's going smooth. I've said all along it's nothing but a constitutional issue."
But Michael Zagaroli, a Grand Rapids attorney who represented the state's police chiefs in their fight against the law, said it's too early to draw conclusions.
"I can't sit here and say there's been a huge problem that has cropped up, but it's only been one year. What may happen over five years? I just have to believe that injecting so many tens of thousands of additional guns into the public realm is not going to lead to good things."
Expecting the worst
A 1998 Grand Rapids Press investigation revealed an uneven playing field for gun owners seeking CCW permits across the state. Gun boards in West Michigan were the stingiest -- giving them almost exclusively to judges, ex-police officers and those with law enforcement connections.
While Kent County issued just 72 so-called general permits in 1997 and Ottawa County issued 24, the gun board in Macomb County, north of Detroit, handed out 4,000 -- more than half the state's total.
Gun advocates supported by state legislators pushed for a new law. When it went into effect last year, Michigan became a "shall-issue" state, mandating county gun boards to grant permits to applicants if they are 21, have no recent criminal history, no mental problems and can pass a training course.
The law also created gun-free zones: schools, day-care centers, hospitals, college dormitories and classrooms, churches, casinos, bars, restaurants that serve alcohol and stadiums and arenas with a capacity of at least 2,500.
Kent County Prosecutor William Forsyth expected the worst. He envisioned an armed populace "overreacting" and pulling guns to shoot purse snatchers. He was among 17 prosecutors across the state to quit their county's gun boards in protest of the new law.
"You just can't convince me that allowing everybody and anybody to carry a gun concealed on their person is going to make it a safer place to live," Forsyth said at the time. He did not return calls for this report.
But gun boards across the state have reported few problems. They have revoked 19 permits for violations of the law and suspended 26 others because they suspected the permit holder was dangerous, usually basing that decision on pending criminal charges, state police said.
The Kent County gun board has suspended one permit -- a Kentwood security guard arrested in June after threatening to kill himself. The Ottawa County board revoked a permit after discovering a man had been convicted of a felony in another state.
In both cases, the men had gotten their permits under the old law, county clerks said.
"I'm not saying there's not problems, but at the state level, we haven't heard of anything major," said David Turner, manager of the support services section for the state police, which keeps records of permit-holders.
Grand Rapids Police Chief Harry Dolan feared officers could be faced with more armed citizens and that gun owners would leave weapons in their cars, making them easy targets for thieves.
But he is not aware of any of that happening yet, he said.
"It's reasonable to say that in the first year, we have not seen many cases where the CCWs have created great hardships on the department," he said.
Ottawa County Prosecutor Ronald Frantz, also an opponent of the law, said he's pleasantly surprised by the results.
"I've stated publicly that I have a philosophical problem with the whole concept" of the law, Frantz said. "But I'm trying to be open-minded. I've got to admit it's working well in Ottawa County."
Other opponents of the CCW law said they were surprised -- and pleased -- more people haven't applied.
Gun board members say it's unlikely that tens of thousands of permit-holders are riding around town with six-shooters strapped to their hips. Some applicants told The Press they planned to carry only while hunting or headed to target practice.
"Most people say they don't plan to carry routinely or all the time," said Dr. Wallace Duffin, who was recently appointed to the Kent County gun board and who has a CCW permit. "I think most people find out what a pain in the neck it is to carry. (The gun) pulls your pants down. The holster wears a hole in your pants."
Holes in the system
Kent County Clerk Mary Hollinrake, who opposes the law, said there is no way to guarantee criminals don't get permits, even with state police and FBI fingerprint checks.
"We still can't verify all felony convictions in 50 states, misdemeanor convictions, and we can't verify mental history," she said. "The world thinks there is one computer in the sky that has this data, but there is not."
Kent County Sheriff's Lt. Michelle LaJoye-Young said her office spent more than 1,600 hours during the last half of 2001 checking local criminal backgrounds, but she wouldn't be surprised if some people with misdemeanor records slipped by.
"There are still some holes in the system, some substantial holes," she said. "This is very much a self-reporting system. It's likely that if somebody wanted to represent themselves as having a clean record and had knowledge of how to do it, they may get away with it over a period of time."
A hole became apparent at a recent Kent County gun board meeting as members considered an applicant named Jason. The board didn't know about his misdemeanor criminal conviction for illegal use of a telephone in Montcalm County until he told them. A background check had turned up nothing.
"As far as I'm concerned, he's out of the picture," said Kent County Sheriff's Capt. Dan Krajewski, a member of the board.
Duffin said the board has given permits to several people he thought shouldn't get one, even though they didn't have police records or known mental problems. Their attitudes, behavior or appearances made him feel uneasy, he said.
"It's just a gut thing -- I wouldn't be comfortable with this guy walking around with a gun on his hip, but there have only been a few of those. We've all had the same feeling -- 'I wish I didn't have to give this guy a permit' -- but there was no legal reason not to. You can't deny somebody just because of a gut feeling."
Saying 'no' to a tree pruner Forrest Brown figured he'd breeze through. The 45-year-old Grand Haven man expected to walk out of Ottawa County's May gun board meeting with a permit. His record is clean, except for the ticket he got from the state DNR in October 2000.
Brown said he didn't know he was committing a misdemeanor when he trimmed branches of scrub oak in a national forest to create a shooting lane for his father, who recently had hip surgery.
"I could see it if I was destroying the forest with a chain saw and a bulldozer," he said.
He wanted a permit so he could carry a handgun while hunting, not for protection, he said.
"This is really stupid," Brown said. "They don't want us doing this at all. Who the hell cares if I was out pruning trees? What does that have to do with carrying a concealed weapon?"
Frantz, the Ottawa County prosecutor, said the state should consider changing the law to allow those with non-violent and non-weapons-related misdemeanors to carry guns.
"We've had people with absolutely spotless records, but they happen to have an expired plate and they can't get a permit," Frantz said. "That kind of stuff makes people crazy. They wonder about the wisdom of the system."
© 2002 Grand Rapids Press. Used with permission
Minor fender-benders are probably causing drivers to kill eachother on the spot as well as innocent bystanders from stray bullets.
What? You mean none of that has happened?
I love it--commit a misdemeanor and that gives you a "criminal history"?
"'You just can't convince me that allowing everybody and anybody to carry a gun concealed on their person is going to make it a safer place to live,;" Forsyth said at the time"
Well, that's true of the dogmatically and ideologically stupid. No amount of facts will convince them.
It is for this very sort of thinking that I am looking at other states in which to relocate my corporation (and jobs). Michigan is beautiful (excluding the 3rd world country of Detroit), but would the last person out please turn off the lights?
Why?
I think that he is on to us. It's a grand conspiracy to behave for a couple of years, then look out. . . Dodge City. Sheez, what an idiot.
Believe me. It could be a lot worse.
Then the sensible thing for the chief to do would be to ask legislators to minimize the list of places where permitholders were banned from carrying!
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And in 2021 he'll be saying, "There's been no problem, but it's only been 20 years. What may happen after 30?"
Most non-2nd Amendment types are shocked when they are told there are 32 shall-issue states. It just doesn't mesh with their "Dodge City" VPC brainwashing.
Someone needs to tell Mary that there is a reason they call those people 'criminals." If those people want a gun, they will get one regardless of what you think or what the laws says.
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