I
went to Madison yesterday, sat for six and one half hours before
getting my chance to speak. I echoed about a dozen people urging passage
of Constitutional carry in Wisconsin.
The
opposition was out in force. About thirty women and a couple of males
in "Moms Demand Progress / Everytown" shirts (probably supplied by
Bloomberg), and a few Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort (WAVE) people,
including the woman who writes most of their emails. Several of the Everytown group brought children, including a couple of infants in carriers. One woman testified with her 2-year old - very cute.
The
first few people speaking for the opposition got deafening rounds of
applause from the gallery. When a few of us tried to clap after one of
our side spoke, we were told that reactions from the gallery were not
allowed. The committee chair did, in fairness, enforce this against the
opposition for the rest of the hearing.
They brought out a couple of tear-jerkers, including this guy who got into the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
News 3 had a camera for the first couple hours.
Both a Catholic spokesman and a rabbi spoke out against, as did several school board spokespeople.
I
got the feeling that the committee was on our side, possibly with an
eye toward some amendments. One big issue for two of the committee was
the elimination of mandatory training to be allowed to carry.
Reiterating the fact that the Bill of Rights does not require permission
to be exercised did not work - they kept referring to the "fire in the
theater" restriction on speech. Another problem was the issue of schools
being allowed to decide to be "gun free" rather than being mandated by
state law. They kept on how this would be some sort of burden to the
schools to post signs - which they all have now, anyway, under current
law.
All in all, a good use of my day.
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