open carry day before deer season

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10-4.I'm sure many of us would've LOVED to be able to frame the actual question going before the Court in Heller...

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Having talked with DNR officials at length on this, this is my understanding of what THEIR take on the legality of this is...

In the city or residential area, carrying for security will not be of any concern to them and should not be of any concern to any LEO as in regards to NR 10.09(2).

Now if they actually catch you sitting in the stand, then they will, in all likely hood, disarm, detain, citation/arrest.

Walking the property, checking for other trespasser/poachers, unclear. The implication is that this falls to the individual warden/LEO as to how they choose to proceed.

In the end, I think the outcome would be much like Para's issue. You will be detained, disarmed, and sited/arrested but formal charges may/not be coming and of course we all get our day in court.

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This subject is very frustrating. The DNR office in Green Bay informs me that carrying a weapon on your own land on the day in question is ok, but they tell you that this practice is left up to the individual LEO/dnr officer to decide the legal implication. I didn't think regular law enforcement were involved in matters of dnr enforcement.

This sounds more like the situation of open carry, the powers that be are just asserting authority in the hope that wording statements carefully would discourage people from exercising their rights.

If everyone that reads this thread calls the dnr and requests clarity on the issue, maybe an official exclamation will be forthcoming. According to the Supreme Court of the U.S. we have the individual right to carry for protection. I would suspect that the dnr would be forced to provide the means that this would be accomplished. Just think for a moment, we get one day back with no strings attached, and keep moving forward.

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borrowed time wrote:

I didn't think regular law enforcement were involved in matters of dnr enforcement.

If everyone that reads this thread calls the dnr and requests clarity on the issue, maybe an official exclamation will be forthcoming. According to the Supreme Court of the U.S. we have the individual right to carry for protection.

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Regular LE (county deputies) are often the first ones responding to a trespassing or rural man-with-gun complaint.

I personally have zero interest in having the DNR actually pickup that question for "clarity."The DNR needs to be taking its direction from the law, and then working out differences with those writing the statute or making a declaratory judgement. I DO NOT want the DNR to promulgate a position on whether I can walk my landowner's property/curtilage (to which I'm trusted) and have the DNR assess the legality of my firearm or the manner of its carry. That needs to be in statute and, frankly, if I were a Conservation Warden I'd want it that way too.

Also, if you're referring to the recent Supreme Court decision in DC v. Heller, that's not what the decision said.

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WIG19 is correct, I'd be careful with assertations that Heller did anything but establish the ".38 in your nightstand" right under the 2nd Amendment, but we can bypass that entirely here in WI because of the State Supreme Court rulings backing up your statement: we have the right to carry for protection as per Hamdan.

edit: When I say "establish," I mean as legal precedent. Obviouslyno court is ina position to "establish" rights...

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Rick Finsta wrote:

WIG19 is correct, I'd be careful with assertations that Heller did anything but establish the ".38 in your nightstand" right under the 2nd Amendment, but we can bypass that entirely here in WI because of the State Supreme Court rulings backing up your statement: we have the right to carry for protection as per Hamdan.

edit: When I say "establish," I mean as legal precedent. Obviouslyno court is ina position to "establish" rights...

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I respectfully disagree. Scalia also wrote, that justjaywalking would NOT BE ENFORCED should you do so to preserve life/limb the local firearms discharge ordinances should not be enforced either should one need to use that ".38 in your nightstand."

Starting on Page 59 of the decision, they address Breyer's decent.

On page 60:

It is inconceivable that this law would have been enforced against a person exercising his right to self-defense on New Year’s Day against such drunken hooligans.

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Then on page 61 - 62:

A broader point about the laws that JUSTICE BREYER cites: All of them punished the discharge (or loading) of guns with a small fine and forfeiture of the weapon (or in a few cases a very brief stay in the local jail), not with significant criminal penalties. They are akin to modern penalties for minor public-safety infractions like speeding or jaywalking. And although such public-safety laws may not contain exceptions for self-defense, it is inconceivable that the threat of a jaywalking ticket would deter someone from disregarding a “Do Not Walk” sign in order to flee an attacker, or that the Government would enforce those laws under such circumstances. Likewise, we do not think that a law imposing a 5-shilling fine and forfeiture of the gun would have prevented a person in the founding era from using a gun to protect himself or his family from violence, or that if he did so the law would be enforced against him.

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--edited for formatting

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bnhcomputing wrote:

I respectfully disagree. Scalia also wrote, that justjaywalking would NOT BE ENFORCED should you do so to preserve life/limb the local firearms discharge ordinances should not be enforced either should one need to use that ".38 in your nightstand."

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You're correct, and he said so right up front in the Syllabus (not citable) that such a prohibition (as that in actual question) "-in the place where the importance of the lawful defense of self, family, and property is most acute-would fail constitutional muster."

But he also said (again from the Syllabus):

"Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited.
It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any
manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed
weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment
or state analogues."

My $.02 on Heller is that much will flow from it, but it is not the instantaneous panacea many think. Of import to me was J. Scalia's:

"A constitutional guarantee subject to future
judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional
guarantee at all. Constitutional rights are enshrined with
the scope they were understood to have when the people
adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes)
even future judges think that scope too broad."


I personally find that one of the finest things ever written.

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At issue is the "where," not the "under what circumstances." Heller was tailored to address the scope of the right AS IT APPLIED IN THE HOME, as per the question before the court. Carry of arms outside the home was quite simply not addressed except loosely as dicta.

I agree that the Court's opinion clearly states that the right of self defense relies on the right to arms for its exercise, and that neither may be infringed in the manner in which D.C. did, but it will take future litigation to clarify the extent of the right's scope; I think Heller was meant to be narrow in it's direct application, though broad in it's dicta.

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Well, I don't thing the decision implied that the court only considers keeping arms, but not bearing arms, to be an individual right.