1000 ft from a school question

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In Monroe WI they just placed a sex offender near my area. Now the question the newspaper stated that in WI sex offenders are NOT allowed within a 1000 ft of a school, so with this being said shouldn't the LEO be able to give me a map of all area schools on it and the 1000 foot layout. Maybe I need to call the LEO offices again.

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Do not know the answer to your question but the statute on the firearms says 'knowingly' so if you get stopped within 1000' of a school and don't know you are within a 1000' should be found not guilty.

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Isn't it terrible that we, the lawful, patriotic gun owners are in the same boat as sex offenders?!!? And we are exercising a constitutionally protected right.

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I was just hoping to get the 1000 ft info from the Police dept. let them do the work LOL

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Unfortunately I doubt that will happen. Or maybe I should say "Fortunately" since if they did you would KNOW what those boundaries were and if you happened to wander across that invisible line...Kabam!

I found the easiest way to determine where 1000 feet is around a school is to use Google Earth and use the ruler. The only issues I have are I don't know the land boundary of the school but if I use the sidewalk as a marker that should give me a bit of extra buffer.

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Can the prosecuting attorney now argue that G00gle Earth is available to all responsible gun carriers and that violators should have known? You can't simultaneously argue your special knowledge and and ignorance as an excuse.

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rcawdor57 wrote:

Unfortunately I doubt that will happen. Or maybe I should say "Fortunately" since if they did you would KNOW what those boundaries were and if you happened to wander across that invisible line...Kabam!

I found the easiest way to determine where 1000 feet is around a school is to use Google Earth and use the ruler. The only issues I have are I don't know the land boundary of the school but if I use the sidewalk as a marker that should give me a bit of extra buffer.

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That would be the way I would do it, better safe than sorry.

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looks like I will be downloading Google earth tonight thanks

I feel the 1000ft rule is like speed zones with NO signs. How is the cop going to prove your within a 1000ft if they don't know themselves?

Maybe the burden of truth should be on them before they issue you a ticket...:cuss::cuss::cuss:

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"Burden of truth" or burden of proof?

A traffic ticket is not a criminal violation and 'presumed innocent until found guilty beyond reasonable doubt' is the standard ONLY in criminal court. In civil court you may be required to prove your innocence by a preponderance of the evidence and the officer of the court, the cop that issued the ticket, is presumed to be honest by his fellow officer of the court judge.

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sorry yes burden of proof

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hduc2005 wrote:

looks like I will be downloading Google earth tonight thanks

I feel the 1000ft rule is like speed zones with NO signs. How is the cop going to prove your within a 1000ft if they don't know themselves?

Maybe the burden of truth should be on them before they issue you a ticket...:cuss::cuss::cuss:

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No ticket...shiny bracelets; be careful.

Then no gun & no vote!!!

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this is a good sticker could apply to businesses as well

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that is a great sticker

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paul@paul-fisher.com wrote:

Do not know the answer to your question but the statute on the firearms says 'knowingly' so if you get stopped within 1000' of a school and don't know you are within a 1000' should be found not guilty.

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yeah but how would you argue that you didn't know??? how would you prove it???

i could have sworn that not to long ago there was a thread somewhere on this forum about an old 70ish year old guy that was told open carry was legal but not told anything else. so he took his little pooch for a walk and got tagged by the cops in a school zone.

i also remember the many people of this forum not being very understanding and just saying "ignorance is not an excuse".


but here's my question......... how in the world am i supposed to know all the school zones??? there are only 2 in my very immediate area and i have a hard enough time remembering where they are. so how on earth am i supposed to know every school zone all over Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, oak creek, etc..etc..etc.. now what about when i go somewhere with my wife and kid for the weekend??? how am i supposed to know about the school zones in Kenosha, west bend, etc..etc..etc..etc....???


there have been several occasions where my wife have gone out of town and i decided to carry because i had absolutely no clue where there might be school zones???


so how exactly are you supposed to open carry AND avoid school zones in unfamiliar territory???

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scorpio_vette wrote:

paul@paul-fisher.com wrote:

Do not know the answer to your question but the statute on the firearms says 'knowingly' so if you get stopped within 1000' of a school and don't know you are within a 1000' should be found not guilty.

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yeah but how would you argue that you didn't know??? how would you prove it???

i could have sworn that not to long ago there was a thread somewhere on this forum about an old 70ish year old guy that was told open carry was legal but not told anything else. so he took his little pooch for a walk and got tagged by the cops in a school zone.

i also remember the many people of this forum not being very understanding and just saying "ignorance is not an excuse".


but here's my question......... how in the world am i supposed to know all the school zones??? there are only 2 in my very immediate area and i have a hard enough time remembering where they are. so how on earth am i supposed to know every school zone all over Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, oak creek, etc..etc..etc.. now what about when i go somewhere with my wife and kid for the weekend??? how am i supposed to know about the school zones in Kenosha, west bend, etc..etc..etc..etc....???


there have been several occasions where my wife have gone out of town and i decided to carry because i had absolutely no clue where there might be school zones???


so how exactly are you supposed to open carry AND avoid school zones in unfamiliar territory???

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Hence the reason to get the law changed. we can debate all we want but unless we go see our elected officials and also write them nothing will change. Remember there is a deal going on about the school zones here in wisconsin that may indeed one day change the law.



:banghead:But first they have to vote themselves raises ( funny how fast that happens )

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The state of Wisconsin adopted our constitutional amendment by an overwhelming 70%+ majority in 1998. It is now 2010 and the legislature has done NOTHING to advance personal protection and firearms carry in Wisconsin, NOTHING!

We at Wisconsin Carry, Inc. are committed to working with the legislators, and we would love to see them change the laws, but given that it has been twelve (12) years and nothing has changed, we decided to take civil action to directly challange these eroneous laws and have them removed by the courts.

To that end, on January 8, 2010 Wisconsin Carry, Inc., on behalf of our members and the citizens of the great state of Wisconsin, filed a federal lawsuit against the State of Wisconsin to overturn the Gun Free School Zone Act.

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Wisconsin Carry, Inc. wrote:

The state of Wisconsin adopted our constitutional amendment by an overwhelming 70%+ majority in 1998. It is now 2010 and the legislature has done NOTHING to advance personal protection and firearms carry in Wisconsin, NOTHING!

We at Wisconsin Carry, Inc. are committed to working with the legislators, and we would love to see them change the laws, but given that it has been twelve (12) years and nothing has changed, we decided to take civil action to directly challange these eroneous laws and have them removed by the courts.

To that end, on January 8, 2010 Wisconsin Carry, Inc., on behalf of our members and the citizens of the great state of Wisconsin, filed a federal lawsuit against the State of Wisconsin to overturn the Gun Free School Zone Act.

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and 8 of those years we can thank the current asshat

is too bad that the lawyers make the money off this kind of crap and that is my final answer :lol:

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A reality check: There is such a paranoia in the minds of the Wisconsin legislature and parents in general, that our children must be protected at all costs, even at the cost of liberties. Our anti-gun state government lives in mortal fear that if they relax the GFSZ restrictionsthey will be held responsible if, heaven forbid, they relax the requirements and a school shooting tradgedy occurs. Getting any legislative action torecind the GFSZ is going to be a daunting task. I think the most we can expect from the legislature are some modest changes. Some examples: Municipalities would be required to mark the 1000 foot perimeters, unloaded open carry allowed in a school zone, permits issued to residents living in the 1000 foot perimeter to open carry, off duty police officers allowed to carry in the 1000 foot perimeter, permits issued to civilians allowing them to open carry in a SZ if they undergo a background check, and after more thought perhaps there are others . Those types of changes may have a chance in the legislature because they give the lawmakers the comfort that there is still a safety perimeter around the schools and the children's safety is still protected.

There are some of you that will hit your keyboards almost before I push the send button on this post and exclaim. Lammie you turncoat, you traitor to our cause nothing less than the legislature recinding statute 948.605 is acceptable. Some will think that if we explain the problem to the legislature it will see the error in its ways and recind the GFSZ statute so that people can carry firearms in school zones in exercise of their constitutional rights. Folks that ain't gonna happen.

Our other options probably lay with either the Attorney General and/or the courts. Perhaps wecould get the right person to ask the AG for an opinion on theenforcementof 948.605, similar to the ruling he did concerning disorderly conduct. Of course there is a risk that the AG may have strong personal opinions on the subject that may dictate his opinion.

The second option would be to find another "Brad Krause". Someone that would risk everything to push the issue through. The court system. Unfortunately, the legal risk is higher than the Krause case. A conviction ofnot complying to 948.605 is a felony and the person convicted is prohibited from owningand carrying firearms for life. I doubt that any of usewill bewilling to take the risk.

In any event getting the GFSZ problems untangled is going to be easier said than done but we can't give up in frustration. My opinion is, this being an election year,we should start putting pressure on the legislature to make carry sensitive changes to the GFSZ statute, especially those that legislators that are candidates. They are more likely to be sensitive toconstituents when their jobs are at stakes.

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As for the original question, the availability of a map showing 1000' buffers from school zones, another route is to get in touch with your city or county land management office, or whoever has the GIS(Geographic Information Systems) people working for them and inquire about having one made up.
If they have the data for the location of the school zones in their database, which they should, any GIS tech worth their salt can make a map of 1000' buffers from the edges of school zones in a very short time. (That's how the one in the Milwaukee sticky thread was made) I'm currently majoring in GIS/Cartographer in Point, so I have a little familiarity with it.
I plan on seeing if I can get the data for Stevens Point at least when I have some free time (senior year is a pain) and running one up for my own curiosity, and will do my best to get it in a format I can share here.

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I'm still thinking that the easiest way around the whole "am i in a school zone or not" debacle (other than removing the law altogether) is to just drop the 1000 ft nonsense. Just leave it at "school property". That, I think, would keep the kiddies with the same level of safety as the have now, and leave us to go about things as we are wont to do without looking at, or carrying maps of school zones. I've found thru making maps for my general area, that 1000 ft. is 2.5- 3 blocks.... thats a large area for "oops" Kind of a " we'er happy, their happy" situation in my view.

Yes?, No? Ideas?