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Status of Open Carry in Chippewa Valley?

mrdane

New member
Joined
Jun 27, 2008
Messages
1
Location
Eau Claire, ,
imported post

Hi all. First post here.

I'm having trouble reconciling the US Constitution, Wisconsin Constitution and various Wisconsin codified text as it relates to open carry in the Chippewa Valley (i.e., Chippewa County, Eau Claire County and the City of Eau Claire) and am hoping someone can offer some clarification in light of the Heller decision.

Most concerning is local code providing, in essence;

"that no person may carry a firearm on any public property"

Eau Claire County and the cities of Eau Claire & Chippewa Falls have such text. Chippewa County seems to only prohibit concealed weapons (that and general possession in Irvine Park.)
 

Shotgun

Wisconsin Carry, Inc.
Joined
Aug 23, 2006
Messages
2,668
Location
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
imported post

Welcome to Opencarry.org!!

You'll find that many municipalities in Wisconsin have old ordinances on the books regarding the bearing of firearms. Back in 1995 these ordinances were invalidated when 66.0409 of the statutes went into effect. In a nutshell, this statute prohibits any municipality from enforcing any local ordinance that is stricter than state law regarding the ownership, possession or bearing of firearms or ammo.

State law regulates concealed carry, firearms in places that serve alcohol, in public buildings etc. So a local ordinance can regulate similarly, but since there is not state law that prohibits firearms simply "on public property" so local ordinances which do that are unenforceable.

Interestingly, some years ago, I found one municipality, Alma, which passed a firearms ordinance AFTER the preemption statute was in effect. I wrote to the city (village?) of Alma and they eventually just sent me a BS response from the city attorney-- but that's another story. The problem is that many municipalities either do not realize that their ordinances may have been invalidated, or, they like to pretend that they haven't been.
 

bnhcomputing

Founder's Club Member
Joined
Dec 13, 2007
Messages
1,709
Location
Wisconsin, USA
imported post

mrdane wrote:
Hi all. First post here.

I'm having trouble reconciling the US Constitution, Wisconsin Constitution and various Wisconsin codified text as it relates to open carry in the Chippewa Valley (i.e., Chippewa County, Eau Claire County and the City of Eau Claire) and am hoping someone can offer some clarification in light of the Heller decision.

Most concerning is local code providing, in essence;

"that no person may carry a firearm on any public property"

Eau Claire County and the cities of Eau Claire & Chippewa Falls have such text. Chippewa County seems to only prohibit concealed weapons (that and general possession in Irvine Park.)

Welcome!

Please read the thread to/aboutLa Crosse County. I notified the CITY of Eau Claire about the ordinace and received an email stating they were aware the ordinance is UNENFORCABLE (it's in there somewhere).

State statute "66.0409 Local regulation of firearm" is what makes those local ordinances obsolete. Some of the municipalities have updated their ordinances adding "concealed", others haven't but they ALL know they cannot enforce the ordinance. They won't get you on that, they'll try to get you with a disorderly charge.

here's the link: http://nxt.legis.state.wi.us/nxt/gateway.dll?f=templates&fn=default.htm&d=stats&jd=66.0409
 
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