I was pleasantly surprised.
The information presented was mostly accurate & unbiased,
though there were a few places/topics where both the chief & lawyer (ADA) avoided a direct answer.
And it seemed that the vast majority of people there were in favor of self-protection. Some wanted to force people to take more training, others clearly realized that laws don't stop criminals.
MANY need to RTFL, both the new cc law & the exisiting laws about self-defense.
I was annoyed that they broke off almost an hour early (scheduled to go til 2, stopped taking questions about 1:10, going to informal one-on-one or small group chatting). Not that there was a group in the room after us, the janitor just wanted to move all the chairs & lock up.
It was clear that the lawyer had no personal knowledge of guns, only what she'd learned through work.
Would tend to skew her perceptions, no?
She did point out that a courthouse is a prohibited place for normal citizens, but she'd be allowed to carry there. With the little she knows about guns, & as inattentive as she is, I hope she either doesn't carry or gets several levels of training over months before she does.
And in chatting w/ her afterward, I got the impression that although she kept mentioning being a lawyer for almost 30 years, she doesn't understand criminals & doesn't pay attention.
I pointed out that I was carrying 2 orange pistols, only one that could be seen (at which point she said she hadn't noticed, even though I was strong side toward her!), & that if I were a criminal intent on harm I could just as easily have walked in with real guns & until I took off my coat nobody would have known.
To which she replied something like, "and the police who are here would have arrested you."
:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:
How can she have so much experience & still be so naieve?
A criminal intent on mass murder isn't stopped by the threat of arrest because he generally plans to die in the act.
She also parroted the case law about a gun openly carried in a car, or lying on a seat, being concealed, even though it's CLEAR that the intent of the legislature was that people are able to carry in their own car with no permit. Asked "what if that were a bag of drugs, would it be plain sight?" & she said "that's different because drugs are illegal".
Well, currently having an unencased gun in a car is illegal too. Fail.
Then she started in on the "how do officers know if you're going to harm someone, esp. them?" tack.
I pointed out that the FBI says that criminals don't carry openly, & she tried to dismiss that as something I'd made up.
Then I pointed out that permit holders are in trouble with the law less than even off-duty cops, & she again tried to dismiss it.
I think I'll send her a letter w/ a link to
http://gunfacts.info/ and the specific quotes / studies / references that back up what I was telling her.
One useful bit of info - sometime next week Milwaukee PD is having an informational / training session to tell officers how to deal with lawfully-armed citizens. That info needs to be FOIA'd.
More idiocy from the lawyer -
she said that very few officers get shot during traffic stops,
then when I said that was a good thing, & showed that armed citizens aren't a danger,
she changed her tune & said that guns are always dangerous & the officer has to decide if the person is going to try to harm someone... plus the "split-second decisions" BS that usually arises.
She also claimed that the only reason officers weren't shot more frequently by people w/ 'concealed' guns in their cars is because they pull people out of their cars @ gunpoint, throw them on the ground, & handcuff them!
:banghead: :cuss:
Did anyone else there get her name? The board was erased before I wrote it down.
Suppose I could email Sen. Carpenter to ask him...