Random Gun Stuff
A St. Paul Pioneer Press editorial says police should be allowed to carry guns. They are referring to the like you and me only better err Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act:
To her credit, Wisconsin Attorney General Peggy Lautenschlager has pointed out this statutory discrepancy to the governor and senior legislators and noted that they need to craft legislation giving the Standards Board, which she oversees, the authority to set up state firearms standards for law enforcement officers.
While we typically favor local government control, we think the Wisconsin Legislature would be wise to give the Standards Board the authority to do this. In supporting these legislative changes, we join the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, the state’s largest police organization, with more than 10,000 members in more than 375 agencies.
“Having a uniform standard is better than not having one and letting the court’s ferret out the case law,” WPPA lobbyist Jim Palmer told us in a recent telephone interview.
We agree.
Per Packing.org, Wisconsin is one of only four states that have no carry provisions for citizens. I wonder how the paper feels about private citizen CCW? The St. Paul Press apparently isn’t oppositional to the NRA:
We can save her some time by directing her to the National Rifle Association. While the powerful Washington lobbying group is often pilloried for its efforts to derail the assault-weapon ban and other gun-control legislation, it’s also the largest gun-safety education organization in the country.
“Over 2,000 public and private law enforcement and military instructors received NRA firearms training or attended NRA-organized armorer schools in 2004,” said Ron Kirkland, director of the NRA’s Law Enforcement Activities Division.
Since 1960, the NRA has trained more than 50,000 law enforcement firearm instructors in police departments and the military. Today, more than 12,000 NRA-certified instructors are training police officers nationwide.
In other words, this is the branch of the NRA that everyone should be able to support.
John Lott, whose research is questionable, addresses his somewhat critics of the NAS. Actually, I kid. He doesn’t address his critics but does make a good point about the study (which is the same point made here repeatedly):
The big news is that the academy’s panel couldn’t identify any benefits of the decades-long effort to reduce crime and injury by restricting gun ownership. The only conclusion it could draw was: Let’s study the question some more (presumably, until we find the results we want).
Lott noted some CCW studies (ahem, his) were ignored in the NAS conclusions.
Speaking of studies, apparently no amount of evidence or statistical data is relevant as long as you can find one extremely sad story:
Hunting statistics don’t do much to explain the bullet that smashed Casey Burns’ car window and struck her in the head near her home in North Whitehall Township a little over a month ago. Nor do the civil charges filed against a deer hunter begin to settle the score in a public debate about the safety of using high-powered rifles in populated areas.
This shooting may have been an accident and the result of carelessness, but it demonstrated in graphic terms what can happen when people and development encroach on game lands, and when hunting regulations — specifically the use of shotguns vs. high-powered rifles — lag behind the times. It’s time for the Pennsylvania Game Commission to revisit these rules and see how they apply to Lehigh and Northampton counties, with an eye to make deer hunting safer.
