LETTER: Don’t trust Doyle on gun issues
The Daily Telegram
Published Thursday, August 23, 2007
To The Telegram:
Gov. Doyle is up to his gun grabbing tricks again.
On Tuesday, he issued a news release advocating legislation to eliminate all private transfers at gun shows, repeal preemption statutes and allow local municipalities to enact their own, more onerous, firearms regulations, ballistic “fingerprinting” technology, expand the number of Wisconsinites who would be prohibited from owning firearms for hunting or self-defense.
On the surface, some may think this is no big deal. Well, it is a very big deal. For those that hunt and shoot in Wisconsin, your gun rights are at risk with this legislation. The gun show loophole is bunk and a favorite target of the gun grabbers. What is more scary is repealing the preemption statues. This was approved in 1995 to make all the laws for local municipalities no stricter than state of Wisconsin gun laws. Letting each town and city set their own gun laws would open a huge can of worms.
Ballistic fingerprinting does not work. It was tried in Massachusetts, and after millions of taxpayer dollars, was deemed a huge failure.
The last few sentences are really scary, as now in Wisconsin if you are convicted of a felony you cannot own a gun. Doyle wants to change that to a misdemeanor. What bothers me about this is how it would be interpreted. Would a hunter convicted of speeding fall under this law? Or what if you have guns in your car and house and get convicted of any other misdemeanor?
In 1998, they passed this, and it’s part of the state constitution: The people have the right to keep and bear arms for security, defense, hunting, recreation or any other lawful purpose. This provision was approved by Wisconsin voters in November 1998 by a 3:1 margin.
In 2003, they passed the right to hunt, fish, trap and take game. It seems to me that Doyle has conveniently forgotten this or is trying to trample all over it.
It’s interesting that Doyle said in a news release on the DPW (WIS DEMS Web site) “Rest assured that as long as I am governor of Wisconsin, law-abiding citizens will never have to fear that their gun rights will be taken away. We will always protect the rights of sportsmen and women to hunt, fish and trap.”
On one hand, he said this. On the other, he several times has tried to pass anti-gun legislation. Not very trustworthy in my opinion.
Please contact your state senator at (608) 266-2517 and your state representative at (608) 266-1501 today and respectfully urge them to oppose Gov. Doyle’s anti-gun measures. Also, please contact the governor at (608) 266-1212 and let him know that his priority should be locking up criminals, not eliminating the rights of law-abiding citizens.
Note that the phone numbers for the state offices are general numbers. Ask to be connected to Rep. Frank Boyle and Sen. Bob Jauch’s office. The phone number for Doyle is his office number.
— James xxxxxx,
Superior
