Wisconsin faces patchwork of concealed carry rules

Wisconsin’s new concealed carry law finally takes effect this week, but packing heat in public won’t be easy. Lambeau Field won’t allow guns. Neither will local high schools. And if you plan on drinking alcohol at the local watering hole, leave your piece in the car.

People can start applying to the state Justice Department for concealed carry licenses on Tuesday. It’ll be several weeks, at least, before the agency issues the first permit. But already a confusing patchwork of local ordinances and off-limit areas has emerged, making it difficult to know for certain where concealed weapons are legal. And underneath it all is a vague sense of paranoia as some people start wondering whether the guy in the next booth or the woman in the checkout line is packing.

“On Nov. 1, we’re a different state than what we were,” said Kerry Kincaid, Eau Claire City Council president, which has adopted a comprehensive ban on concealed weapons. “It makes me more wary and weary. Most of the time you can’t go backwards when you pull out that gun. People aren’t coming up to me in the grocery store and saying I can hardly wait.”

Forty-eight other states allow concealed weapons. The National Rifle Association and other gun advocates have pushed for concealed carry legislation in Wisconsin for the better part of a decade, arguing the move would give law-abiding people a means to defend themselves against criminals. But they kept running into former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s veto pen.

The political landscape shifted dramatically after last November’s elections, though. Republicans swept to control of the state Assembly and Senate, and the governor’s office. In July, Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill into law that allows people who get firearms training to obtain a permit to carry a hidden weapon.

The law bars concealed carry in a number of settings, however, including schools, police stations, court houses and beyond airport security checkpoints. Business owners and government entities who don’t want concealed weapons in their buildings can post signs warning people to keep them out, leaving owners to navigate between offending safety advocates and gun supporters, as well as dealing with some surprisingly sticky legal issues.

The law absolves anyone who allows weapons in their buildings of liability. But the statutes don’t extend that same immunity to people who ban them. In a counterintuitive twist, some attorneys contend that means someone injured in a fight in an establishment that bans concealed weapons could sue on the grounds the business prevented them from defending themselves with a concealed weapon.

The Green Bay City Council defeated a proposal this month to ban concealed weapons in city buildings. That means anyone who shows up at a council meeting might have a gun under his or her coat, but Mayor Jim Schmitt said he didn’t think it was a big deal.

“A guy came in with a sledgehammer looking for me one time. That’s the world we live in,” Schmitt said. “I’m accepting of that.”

Tom Diehl, president and chief executive officer of the Tommy Bartlett Show, a water ski show in Lake Delton, plans to allow his customers to carry, too. He said signs banning weapons frighten people.

“It sends off a horrible message to our travelers,” he said. “Whether I like the law or don’t like the law, I just don’t like putting signs up that would heighten people’s fear factor.”

In Madison, Walker’s administration has decided to allow weapons in most state buildings, including parts of the Capitol that aren’t controlled by the legislature and the state Supreme Court.

The justices are expected to flesh out their own policy next month. Republicans who control the legislature plan to allow weapons on the floor of the Assembly and Senate, in both houses’ committee meetings and in the Assembly gallery. Weapons would not be permitted in the Senate gallery. Individual lawmakers would be allowed to decide whether to ban weapons in their offices.

The Legislature’s polices have drawn criticism from minority Democrats and at least one high-ranking Republican. Rep. Fred Kessler, D-Milwaukee, raised fears that weapons in the Assembly gallery could lead to spectators shooting representatives, pointing to an incident in 1954 when Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire from the U.S. House of Representatives gallery.

Senate President Mike Ellis, R-Neenah, said weapons shouldn’t be allowed in the Capitol, citing lingering anger over a Republican law stripping public workers of most of their collective bargaining rights.

Guns will still be banned at Lambeau Field and Miller Park. The University of Wisconsin System and Marquette University are maintaining weapons bans in buildings, but the law leaves them powerless to bar them anywhere else. That means students can’t bring guns into Economics 101 or a Wisconsin football game, but they can carry weapons if they have a permit when they’re lounging on the quad or walking home.

The Eau Claire City Council adopted an ordinance that bans weapons in almost all municipal structures with four walls and a roof, from City Hall to pump houses. The measure also requires establishments that sell alcohol to post a sign warning people carrying concealed weapons won’t be served booze. Event organizers must tell the city manager whether they plan to prohibit hidden weapons and what safety steps they’ll take if they don’t.

Despite all the precautions, Kincaid, the council president, said she’s worried about angry permit holders. She still thinks about the assassination attempt on U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in January, she said.

“Yes, I do have trepidations. I’m a public official,” she said. “We deal with difficult issues. Our meetings are a tense place.”

Concealed carry advocates say those fears are overblown.

According to a report by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, nearly 80,000 people held a permit in that state at the end of 2010. The report found 330 permit holders — less than a hundredth of a percent — committed crimes ranging from assault to carrying under the influence last year.

“The people who get permits are people who don’t get in bar fights. They don’t act out. If they see the sign, they’re going to take their business elsewhere,” said Joseph Olson, a Hamline University law professor and a lobbyist for the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance who helped write Minnesota’s concealed carry law.

Still, Wes Skoglund, a former Minneapolis legislator who opposed Minnesota’s law, said the state’s culture has changed. People are afraid, at least in the back of their minds, he said.

“I don’t call it paranoia. It’s a reasonable thought,” Skoglund said. “The guy next to you who’s angry may be armed. It’s not going to make for a better state.”