Congratulations Wisconsin!! Today is the official day that Wisconsin will allow concealed carry in their state. For Wisconsin residents they can now start submitting applications, but for non-residents who hold a permit that is honored by WI you can carry there legally now. This is a big day in the concealed carry world–state #49 moved over to the CCW side leaving only Illinois where no citizen can legally carry a loaded weapon (unloaded CCW may be legal). It has been great watching state laws move more towards firearm freedom over the last several years and I look forward to a day soon where Illinois will follow suit. For any questions about concealed carry in Wisconsin check out the WI DOJ FAW.
We are in the process of updating our reciprocity maps and will have them updated shortly. Thanks for your patience.
In June 2010 the Supreme Court struck down Chicago’s gun bans. Predictions about Chicago running red with blood in the streets (not sure what they thought was already happening) and turning into the wild wild west (that probably would have been better than what was currently happening in Chicago).
Chicago Mayor Daley predicted the following:
Overturning the gun ban was “a very frightening decision” and predicted more deaths along with Wild West-style shootouts and that people “are going to take a gun and they are going to end their lives in a family dispute.” . . .
Well, it didn’t happen. Time and time again (Virginia’s firearms in restaurants) we’ve seen more guns equals less crime. John Lott, author of “More Guns, Less Crime” analyzed the crime rates in Chicago before and after the gun ban was struck down.
See the rest of John Lott’s analysis of Chicago and DC after their gun bans were lifted:
Over 1600 homes were evacuated as wildfire spread through Herriman, UT
Many of you may have heard about the Utah wildfires in Herriman that happened earlier this week. Living in Utah, this has hit pretty close to home (seeing friends on FB show pics of the fire outside their back windows). I live about 20 minutes away from the fires.
What has really come to the front of my mind though is the need to evacuate your home very quickly. Over 1600 homes were evacuated in Herriman (only 4 have actually been damaged by the fire with 3 being completely burned down as of this writing) but it made me think about what it would take for me to be fine leaving my home in a rush. Would I have the supplies I needed or would I be relying on the kindness and generosity of other people and organizations. What if the disaster was larger and there were less people available to help and more in need. Having a BUG out bag or a 72 hour kit would be perfect for a situation like this. Enough food/water/clothes/supplies for 3 days would get you by until either you were able to return to your home or you were able to secure additional supplies.
My next thought–what is really important in my home if it were to burn down. Would I know what to grab and where it was located if I needed to head out quickly? Have I re-located back up copies of important computer files or documents to locations outside of my home? Do I have valuables items or documents that need to be stored in a safety deposit box or another secure location?
How prepared would you be if you needed to evacuate. Would you be able to grab the “important” things and head out within minutes, if needed?
All of these preparations need to happen BEFORE an emergency happens. It’s seems to be something that always gets pushed back because the need isn’t immediate–until it is–which is then too late. For those of you who do have 72 hour kits, one of the hardest things to do is actually test them. Have you practiced leaving the house in a hurry simulating an emergency? Or better yet, have you left for 72 hours with only your kits and seen how it would be actually needing to survive with what’s in your bag? Do you know how to use everything in your bag?
Some things to think about BEFORE you are forced to evacuate for a wildfire, or an earthquake, or a tornado, or flood, or . . . (fill in the blank with the likely disasters or emergencies that can happen in your area)
P.S. If you are looking for more information on what to put in a 72 hour kit or BUG Out bag here is a guide that can help: Bugging Out and Staying Alive (from the U.S. Concealed Carry Association)
The following article was written by Robert G. Heinritz, Jr., J.D. on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 in the wake of the Virginia Tech school shootings. The article is being printed with his permission.
Bob Heinritz is an honors graduate in management, economics, and law; and a member of the Bar of the states of Arizona, Illinois, and Missouri. He is a former trial lawyer, and now a business attorney and management consultant, specializing in strategic-planning, productivity, and business turnarounds.The issue at hand is still relevant today and is being debated at schools across the country as they continue to argue whether guns have a place on campuses. Incidents at Colorado State University, in Texas and Arizona, Utah, and elsewhere show that people are still searching for the best solution to protecting the students, faculty, and others on campus. Unfortunately, most of them get it wrong.
“Gun-Free” School Zone Again a Failure
“We’re all ignorant, just on different subjects.” Will Rogers
“Without data, we’re just another schmuck with an opinion.” D. Chris Anderson, Ph.D.
All of us should feel a little sick, and great sympathy for the victims and their families, as a result of the tragic series of shootings by a deranged killer in Blacksburg, Virginia. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the killing-spree at Virginia Tech is precisely what the anti-self-defense forces have been hoping for:
(1) Predictable, the followers of Sarah Brady – and perhaps many of the Democratic candidates for President – will exploit this needless tragedy to call for more gun control among the law-abiding.
(2) Second Amendment advocates, with knowledge of the scientific data, will observe that, in that terrible nightmare-situation in Blacksburg, if just one civilian with a firearms concealed-carry permit had been among the shooter’s intended-victims, he or she could have stopped the killing and saved many lives – long before the police arrived. This is exactly what happened on January 16, 2002 at Appalachian Law School in Grundy, Virginia, where three individuals, two of whom were legally armed with handguns, stopped a disgruntled former student who was trying to kill everyone.
But self-defense was impossible at Virginia Tech. In an incredible act of “feel-good” ignorance, “Policy 5616 – Campus and Workplace Violence Prevention Policy” prohibited all firearms for self-defense from the Virginia campus. Lawful gun-owners – who had submitted applications, paid all fees, submitted fingerprint-cards for national police-checks, and confirmed knowledge of the law and proficiency with their firearm – were told by Virginia Tech they do not have the right to defend their life, even though the State of Virginia has said they can. Their uninformed desire to “feel safe” prompted this foolish university policy, which actually made people less safe. Virginia Tech’s Policy-5616 enabled the needless carnage on their campus. The cost this day – some 33 killed, plus more wounded and possibly dying in a premeditated murder-spree.
It could have been avoided. All credible scientific data confirms in the United States roughly 2.5-million crimes are stopped or deterred by armed civilians every year – most with no shots fired, and fewer than one in a thousand resulting in any death. 2.5-million crimes! There have been scores of credible, independent, criminological-studies which confirm guns in the hands of the law-abiding save lives. You might start by reading economist John Lott’s MORE GUNS, LESS CRIME, and his later, MEDIA BIASES AGAINST GUNS. There are hundreds of such publications – many by well-known, liberal Constitutional scholars – on the Constitution, history, and current criminological data. There is no – repeat, NO – valid data that indicates so-called “gun control” laws prevent violence, or keep guns out of the hands of criminals. The data indicates just the reverse – where the law-abiding are deprived of their right of self-defense, violent crime increases.
So-called “gun control” laws harm innocent people. My friend, Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp, lost her parents in the Luby’s massacre in Killeen, Texas. Dr. Hupp, who kept her gun locked up that day in compliance with the law at the time, said “I blame the deaths of my parents on the legislators who deny me the right to defend myself.” Just 2-months later, in an eerily-similar incident in a restaurant armed-robbery in Anniston, Alabama, all innocent lives were saved by a lone customer who happen to have a legally-concealed pistol in his possession. The national press – which had such an anti-gun feeding-frenzy over the Killeen incident – never bothered to mention the 21-lives saved by the lone gunman in Anniston.
There is an old legal maxim, “Hard cases make bad laws.” As I am writing this, all major TV networks – following their
ethic “if it bleeds, it leads” – are rehashing every past school-shooting incident in their TV libraries. I have no doubt they will dig up Sarah Brady, Bill Clinton, or some other politician to once again call for their discredited and dangerous laws. What every TV-report has failed to mention is every one of those schools were by law, “gun free” – meaning the killers knew their victims were defenseless. In Israel, attacks on schools were abruptly stopped when teachers and (where appropriate) adult-students were permitted guns for self-defense.
What position will the media take? A rational policy based on the data? Or still more hysterical calls for useless anti-gun laws, which are ultimately more dangerous to our values and public safety?
MSNBC wrote about the history of concealed carry today–one of the big points of the article was the debate between pro-gun and anti-gun folks regarding crime statistics in relation to concealed carry permits. Bottom line–there is no credible source that says more concealed carry increases violent crime-none (unless you count the factless opinions of the Brady’s and VPC). A lot of studies says that there is no correlation and some say crime drops with concealed carry. This is after almost 25 years of concealed carry. If after 2 decades of people trying to find stats that show concealed carry is dangerous and no one can provide any credible proof that crime goes up then why do people care?
I personally believe that concealed carry does reduce crime (the overall crime rate for the country has dropped significantly over the last 25 years as concealed carry has significantly risen–a lot of factors need to be taken into account, but it’s a strong correlation in the right direction). Regardless, if they can’t come up with anything in 25 years showing that concealed carry can lead to an increase in crime then drop the issue. Let us live our lives by the constitution (even if they don’t want to) and have the ability to protect ourselves and our families.
A NJ gun store owner wanted to sponsor his son’s little league baseball team last October but his application was rejected–no specific reasons were given but one committee member seemed to think it would cause “controversy” and that the committee didn’t need that headache. I don’t have a problem with private businesses and organizations making decisions like this (Starbuck‘s has been in the news for allowing gun ownership recently, as well as California Pizza Kitchen who has not allowed open carry of firearms).
I don’t like however that the committee has allowed tobacco, alcohol, and inappropriately dressed woman (all of which are not age appropriate) as sponsors but then deny a gun store. They are free to pick and choose, but I would seriously consider pulling my son out of that league for being so inconsistent in their sponsorship selection by rejecting a gun store but allowing other sponsorships that are equally likely to cause “controversy”. I fully believe that gun owning consumers must vote with their dollars and purchase from stores that do not prohibit legal guns in their stores. And make sure that you drop them a note saying that you are respecting their wishes by keeping your gun and your money out of their store (or that you are spending money at a certain location because they allow you to protect yourself with your personal firearm in their store). Money speaks loud in the business world.
A recent experience at a Utah school–Utah Valley University–where a student, Nick Moyes, was stopped for carrying a firearm has been getting some recent media exposure. In Utah the issue wasn’t the fact that he had a firearm with him on campus but the fact that he was openly carrying that firearm. Nick was aware enough of his situation to pull out his iPhone fairly early in the encounter and posted his videos on YouTube here and here.
Utah is one of the very few places where citizens may carry a firearm on a school campus (Elementary through College) with a concealed firearm permit. And in Utah, where there is no law that prohibits openly carrying a firearm (as long as you have a permit) then it is not illegal to do so. And if it is not illegal, then it IS legal. It seems like a very black and white issue and Nick knew the laws of the state better than the law enforcement officers did (how can you uphold the law if you don’t know what the law is). Well the school doesn’t seem to be concerned with what the law is (even though in Utah public schools are not allowed to trump state firearm laws). One of the two officers who detained Nick even seemed to agree that the law was on Nick’s side–but he said that it was simply easier to conceal his firearm. His logic? If you exercise your rights, then it will bring more attention to them–which could lead lawmakers to take that right away from you–so don’t bother exercising your rights because then you’ll lose it. I’m not making this stuff up–it’s all in the video. So if you can’t exercise a legal right when it is legal then do you really have a right? It might as well be illegal if you can’t do it when it is legal.
Through all of this, what has really stood out to me as I’ve followed the incident is the question of how far I would be willing to go in order to fight for something I believe in. Nick Moyes has had that decision thrust upon him by some people who happen to have an opinion different than state law–and then enforced his opinion (and that of his superiors) as though it were law. Nick initially complied with the requests of officers to conceal his firearm (after a lengthy debate until he realized that the officers would not reason with him or the law) and then he has started to push the incident step by step to try and regain his ability to exercise his legal right to open carry on campus again. But the school hasn’t budged. The incident is still ongoing, but it’s caused me to think about what I would do in a similar situation.
The aftermath of the initial incident resulted in the gun community in Utah to suggest ideas about how we can bring UVU and other public universities in Utah into compliance with the law rather than their opinion. The ideas ranged from contacting state legislators, the attorney general, the school itself and soliciting legal opinion–to wearing shirts with an arrow pointed to a concealed firearm saying “I’m Armed”–to using news/media outlets to increase awareness of the issue–to staging open carry events on campus to force the issue (some intentionally talking about doing so to get arrested and then to force the issue through the courts).
It’s more important now to fight for your rights. But just how far would you go to defend your rights. Would you take the time and energy to constantly write/call/email your state reps and others who can help make changes? Would you spend the time and money needed to fight for changes? Would you willingly get yourself arrested and fight in courts? Would you give your life to fight for freedom? This country was founded because people were willing to fight and die for freedoms. But where do we stand today? What’s the best way to truly change this country (for the better–unlike some other changes that are ruining our country)? I don’t have all the answers–but I wanted to thank Nick for giving me a close to home real life situation to help me contemplate where I personally stand.
If you want to learn more about Nick and his experience you can follow it here. And if you are interested in getting involved here is a good place to start:
UVU Chief Brewer’s email: brewerjc@uvu.edu
UVU Office of President Holland: REYESKY@UVU.EDU
Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff: uag@utah.gov
Very few schools allow concealed weapons on campus. Colorado State University was one of the few that did–but recently they voted to ban concealed weapons on campus. The student association had previously voted to continue to allow concealed weapons by a vote of 21-3 but the school board didn’t seem to listen or care. So the students wanted it, but the faculty board voted unanimously (7-0) to ban guns.
Just a state away, the state of Utah prohibits state owned schools from banning concealed weapons, which means that all Utah public colleges, in addition to all public elementary, middle, and high schools, allow concealed weapons. Other than suicide, I can not find any deaths caused by guns on a school campus in the state of Utah. Ever. The Utah Supreme Court struck down the University of Utah’s attempt to ban guns in 2006. Since then there have been no problems that I know of.
There was a shooting at a mall in Salt Lake at Trolley Square in 2007. It was a posted gun-free zone and the shooter was pinned down after killing 5 people by an off-duty police officer who was carrying a firearm until emergency response showed up. Nothing like this has ever happened at schools in Utah.
I personally have experience with carrying firearms into elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and colleges and universities in the state. If nothing more than a convenience it isn’t worth banning them when they do not cause any problems. More than once, I’ve unexpectedly found myself on school property with my concealed firearm, and was glad that I didn’t have to turn around or break the law. I’ve never gone crazy and started shooting just because I am on school property. And when you add the benefits of reduced crime and the ability to protect yourself, I feel that every school in the county should allow concealed firearms. We’ve written about this before (specifically regarding teachers, not students) when a school district in Texas passed a law allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons and we haven’t had problems there. We see it over and over again–concealed carry does not lead to wild wild west shootouts and random gun fights.
Now–back to CSU. More compelling reasons to allow concealed weapons. Here are some graphs for various crime trends (original source here)–note that in 2003 CSU changed their policy to allow concealed weapons.
Across the board CSU crime trends peaked in 2003, then decreased–usually dramatically–until 2009. I’m not sure what else you want to see, but this is convincing enough evidence for me. Guns do have a place at school.
We hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving day and nice break. We hope you were safe through any holiday shopping and got to go out and shoot sometime this weekend.
There is so much to be grateful for even during this uncertain time. We have more freedoms and opportunities in this country. We have concealed carry in more states than ever and we are making progress in the other 2 towards CCW. In many states we have shall issue CCW and you can carry a firearm for protection almost anywhere you go.
Even though some gun rights are under attack and the country is headed down a dangerous path we have a great opportunity in America to correct the path. It may not be easy or fast, but we can do it. Continue to fight for our freedoms and for our country and remember all that you have to be grateful for. Happy Thanksgiving.
Read the thoughts of Sgt. Brian Singer, stationed in Iraq, on gun-free zones. Seems like he understands that when you create a gun free zone you only dis-arm the law-abiding citizens and DO NOT dis-arm criminals. Sounds familiar . . .
“The tragic results of victim disarmament were made real with the shooting at Fort Hood, Texas. If this were a moral and proper world, as soon as the suspect, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, drew his weapon, every person in the building would have had their sights leveled on him.”
See full story here.
