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Earlier this fall, while scanning the merchandise at a state gun show for an antique handgun, longtime gun enthusiast Guy Gorsky took notice of more than the array of potential investment pieces.
Based on the attire worn, questions asked and weapons eyed by a group of young men, Gorsky, who attends three or four gun shows a year, had a feeling they were gang members looking to make a quick purchase.
“They were only looking at automatic weapons,” says Gorsky, who keeps a variety of handguns and rifles in his Madison home. “I found that the most concerning.”
Unlike weapons purchased from a federally licensed firearms dealer, weapons bought at a gun show can often be whisked away the same day without a background check because not all sellers at gun shows are federally licensed. That'sthe main reason behind Gorsky's concern.
It’s also not the only easy way criminals have discovered to get their hands on a weapon. Sometimes they get it from a friend or family member who buys the gun under his or her own name. This act of “straw purchasing” is just a misdemeanor in Wisconsin, punishable by up to nine months in jail.
These loopholes in the law, along with a surge in gun violence across the state, have prompted Milwaukee-based Democratic lawmakers and others across the state to take action. State records indicate that, based on the number of background checks performed, legislative action is coming at a time of record-high handgun sales. According to the Department of Justice, handgun sales have shot up to more than 52,000 so far this year, an increase of nearly 5,000 from 2008 and a spike of more than 13,000 from two years prior.
The rollout of legislation by state Democrats is a bold, out-of-sync step with their congressional peers, who have in recent years taken a more hands-off approach to gun control. It remains to be seen whether the pro-gun lobby of the National Rifle Association will prove as effective at quieting state Democrats — who control both houses of the Legislature and the governor’s office — as it has been at quashing efforts at the federal level.
Those involved with efforts in Wisconsin, though, are keenly aware of the pro-gun lobbyist’s presence and power.
“When you look at the fact we are taking on the NRA and other pro-gun groups during a re-election year, we’re bucking the trend,” says Sen. Spencer Coggs, D-Milwaukee, a sponsor of several bills to curb gun violence. “I used to be surprised by the power of the pro-gun opposition, but not anymore. They come out of the woodwork whenever talk of legislation arises.”
Larry Gleasman, owner of Grampa’s Gun Shop, has been a fixture on Williamson Street in Madison for the past 30 years. He says 95 percent of his clientele buy guns for sport shooting. Business has always been steady, but it has begun to increase of late.
Gleasman speculates some of his sales increases may be due to the closing of other Madison gun shops. But gun owners also seem to be motivated by a fear that the year-old flip to a Democratic-controlled White House and Congress will lead to a clampdown on firearm purchases.
In other words, panic buying and stockpiling has begun.
Gleasman says a customer recently came in and purchased six assault rifles. After jokingly asking the man if he planned to start a war, the customer told Gleasman he was buying the guns for his two young sons in case the guns weren’t available or became too expensive in the coming years. “He wanted to buy now because he wasn’t confident he would be able to buy them later,” Gleasman says.
Gleasman's own observations are backed up by state records on criminal background checks. A check must be conducted before a person can buy a handgun in Wisconsin, except when a gun transaction occurs between a seller and an unlicensed dealer.
Gun buyers must wait at least 48 hours to finalize a sale, during which the Department of Justice performs a background check. For purchases of long guns, a category that includes shotguns and rifles, background checks are conducted at the federal level.
According to the state Department of Justice, the number of background checks performed annually has drastically increased in the past two years after holding steady at around 39,000 in 2006 and 2007. The numbers began climbing in February 2008, the month after Barack Obama’s Iowa caucus win.
Through November, the DOJ has processed more than 52,000 background checks, an increase of at least 13,000 checks from two years prior when a Republican president still was in office.
Gorsky, who typically buys antique guns, started stockpiling ammunition for some of the guns he owns but adds to his gun collection only when the right one comes along. He says he can understand the panic among gun owners.
“Although they will never take away your right to own a gun, they will limit things through taxation and restricting ammunition manufacturing,” Gorsky says. “It will become prohibitive for people to purchase. I’m concerned about the political environment in Washington and have been since Obama started running for office.”
The political environment in Washington, however, appears to be in Gorsky’s favor. While it is true that Democratic lawmakers pushed for the Gun Control Act of 1968, the Brady Bill in 1993 and the Crime Control Act of 1994, Obama and Congressional Democrats have caved to the lobbying power of the National Rifle Association.
Earlier this year, 65 U.S. House Democrats signed a letter opposing the re-instatement of the 1994 assault weapons ban after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder made public statements about reinstating it. Obama decided to let the assault weapons ban issue languish. Obama handed gun-rights groups another victory in May when he signed a bill allowing loaded firearms into national parks and forests.
These recent actions followed about a decade of retrenchment on gun control issues by the Democrats despite two school-related massacres — at Columbine High School in 1999 and at Virginia Tech eight years later — that made headlines for weeks.
Although Democrats tried to push for stricter gun laws following the Columbine shootings, they were beaten back by the Republicans. By the time the next big gun-related massacre took place at Virginia Tech, the Democrats didn’t push for anything. Instead, the incident merely prompted a warning from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who cautioned his peers not to “rush to judgment.”
Observers say Democrats have largely abandoned gun-control efforts because of the well-funded and politically organized base of the NRA — especially when stacked against the less cohesive and less well-funded gun-control groups. The NRA even took credit for Democrat Al Gore’s inability to win West Virginia, Arkansas and his home state of Tennessee in the 2000 election because of his anti-gun views.
Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, says taking credit for these defeats is part of the NRA’s spin machine. “Political mythology is used very cleverly by the NRA, and people buy into it,” Horwitz says. “We face a very skilled, very organized opponent. Changes are never easy, but it’s not impossible.”
According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, the NRA pumped more than $17 million into federal races since 1989 — 82 percent of which went to Republican candidates — and spent more than $50 million on independent expenditures for or against candidates during the same time frame. In addition, the NRA has about four million members who are active grassroots supporters.
How successful Democrats are in pushing through legislation in Wisconsin compared to their Congressional counterparts remains to be seen. The battle, though, has begun.
The most recent square-off between pro-gun lobbyists and those who support state Democrats’ efforts to curb gun violence took place last Tuesday at a public hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Pro-gun groups came out in force, with representatives from the National Rifle Association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the Wisconsin Firearms Owners, Ranges, Clubs & Educators, among others, descending on the Capitol to blast a new ballistics technology known as microstamping.
Groups registered in support of the bill included the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the League of Wisconsin Municipalities and the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort. Horwitz of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, was the lone lobbying voice from the national level to defend the bill.
William Morales, a 20-year police veteran and regional coordinator of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett’s Office of Violence Prevention, says the new technology, which leaves two marks on a fired gun shell, would quicken turnaround time for solving gun-related crimes. “The shell casing becomes the firearm,” Morales told committee members. “We can contact the manufacturer and begin the trace. We can find out who the first purchaser was. Even if that person is not the one who committed the shooting, it will get us started.”
But pro-gun lobbyists argue that microstamping would do nothing to curb crime and would lead to a de facto ban on the sale of semiautomatic handguns in the state. The NRA’s Jordan Austin called the bill “stepping-stone legislation” that would have no effect on solving crimes.
“This bill will result in firearms not being shipped to your state,” Austin, a state liaison with the NRA, said.
Rachel Rodriguez, a legislative assistant to Rep. Leon Young, D-Milwaukee, says she and Young were not surprised by the number of pro-gun lobbyists who attended the hearing or what they had to say.
“They’ve been using the same rhetoric for years,” Rodriguez says. “And we disagree with 99 percent of it.”
On Thursday, the two sides will likely meet again when the Assembly Criminal Justice Committee holds a public hearing on a bill that would require lost or stolen firearms to be reported to authorities within 48 hours. Co-sponsored by Milwaukee Democrats Sen. Coggs and Rep. Jon Richards, the bill would make someone failing to report a lost or stolen firearm subject to fines and possible jail time.
“The purpose of the bill is to impact criminal activity,” Rodriguez says. “If you are a responsible gun owner and take care of your guns and shell cases, these laws will not affect you. But if you are a criminal, they will. And that’s the goal.”
The legislative efforts are largely due to recent reports by Milwaukee media about the ease with which felons were obtaining guns and using them in crimes.
One store in particular, Badger Guns of Milwaukee, has been under fire since Milwaukee police discovered felons routinely frequent the store and practice shooting at its firing range. It was also found that Badger and its predecessor, Badger Outdoors, have accounted for roughly one-third of crime guns recovered by Milwaukee police each year and have been among the top stores in the nation for selling crime guns, according to the investigation.
According to Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn, guns sold at Badger Guns were used to shot five officers in the past two years. Nine of 10 straw purchasers prosecuted in Wisconsin since 2007 made their purchases at Badger Guns or Badger Outdoors, a review of court records by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel shows. In the past five years, the store accounted for 21 of the 27 cases prosecuted.
“I’d love to hear people justify why a felon should be allowed in a gun store or why it’s OK for a felon’s girlfriend to buy him guns,” says Sen. Coggs, who is in the process of drafting a bill to curtail such activities. “You can’t justify that. As more people understand the kinds of abuses that can and do happen, the more they will get behind this.”
Coggs may not have that tough of a fight. Rep. Scott Gunderson, R-Waterford, has already introduced a similar bill in the Assembly. Gunderson has sought to make straw purchasing a state felony for the past 10 years but with no luck. Some lawmakers oppose any change in the law, arguing that cases involving straw purchasing can already be sent to federal court for a felony charge, negating the need to upgrade the crime from a misdemeanor under Wisconsin law.
Despite Gunderson’s advocacy of straw purchasing legislation, he is not opposed to gun rights. In fact, he’s also spent about 10 years trying to pass a controversial law that would allow residents to carry concealed weapons in public. State law now allows weapons to be carried in someone’s home, business or on their land. His bill has twice made it to Gov. Jim Doyle’s desk before being vetoed.
“He wants to make sure law-abiding citizens have the opportunity for self-protection, but he also wants to make sure criminals cannot get their hands on guns,” says Michael Bruhn, a spokesman with Rep. Gunderson’s office.
Jeri Bonavia, executive director of the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort, says there are many things that can be done to honor the gun-friendly culture of Wisconsin while working to prevent gun violence. She says microstamping, bumping up the state penalty for straw purchasing from a misdemeanor to a felony, and requiring background checks for all gun sales are all pieces of legislation that would respect law-abiding gun owners and the state’s hunting culture.
“This isn’t government intrusiveness,” Bonavia says. “This is just about living in a peaceful society together.”
Steven Elbow contributed to this report.