The stupidity! It burns!

Rock County spending tax money to alert criminals to "free-fire" zones and possible victims to "lawsuit-friendly" zones.
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Signs of the times: Rock County tackles concealed carry complications

By CATHERINE IDZERDA ( Contact )   Sunday, Nov. 13, 2011

Photo by Bill Olmsted

Signs posted by Rock County officials prohibit guns or other weapons from most of the buildings at the Rock County 4H Fairgrounds. One building, which holds gun shows, prohibits concealed weapons.

JANESVILLE — Who knew it would be so complicated?

Wisconsin's concealed carry law allows local units of government to decide if concealed weapons will be allowed in the buildings under their care.

But if towns, cities or counties have rules more restrictive than the state's, they have to make sure they're legally covered. In most cases, the covering is plastic or aluminum signs reading, "No firearms or weapons in building."

Nick Osborne, Rock County assistant to the administrator, worked with the county's legal team to draft an ordinance regulating concealed weapons on county property.

"One of the first steps we took was to contact the department heads and ask them what they wanted," Osborne said.

They received a unanimous reply: no weapons in buildings.

To make that legal, state law requires signs be posted at all entry doors.

The county spent $3,420 to buy 733 signs.

At the Rock County 4-H Fairgrounds, the county has posted signs reading, "No firearms or weapons in building," at each entry door for every building on the grounds, including the garage doors for vendor spaces under the grandstand. The signs ban all weapons—concealed or not.

Read the whole thing.
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What complications? This was a perfect chance for Rock County to ELIMINATE some outdated laws and help return our government to its' legal limits by removing laws banning weapons. At the least, they could have added language to existing laws banning weapons only for criminals or illegal purposes, and they would not have had to spend the money for the signs - not to mention the (union?) labor needed to put them up.

Wisconsin law puts the responsibility for any injury caused because of this disarmament squarely on the organization placing the signs, and indemnifies organizations who do NOT post. So if a criminal or nutcase goes into a Rock County building and starts shooting, the taxpayers of Rock County will foot the legal bill.

Of course, no mention made of how they will enforce this, so it's simply another un-Constitutional infringement on the law-abiding.

"We didn't want to get ridiculous with this," Osborne said.

 Why not? Banning legal guns in washrooms is not only ludicrous, it's cruel.

There's more. Wisconsin law 66.0409  Local regulation of firearms.

4(b) If a political subdivision has in effect on November 17, 1995, an ordinance or resolution that regulates the sale, purchase, transfer, ownership, use, keeping, possession, bearing, transportation, licensing, permitting, registration or taxation of any firearm or part of a firearm, including ammunition and reloader components, and the ordinance or resolution is not the same as or similar to a state statute, the ordinance or resolution shall have no legal effect and the political subdivision may not enforce the ordinance or resolution on or after November 18, 1995. 

 I wonder if there's a legal route to get that section of the new CCW law declared void in relation to local concealed carry and weapons bans, since the CCW law opened up carry laws.