Forget Chicago. Mayor Daley reaction to the Supreme Court’s McDonald decision striking down the Windy City’s handgun ban was a foregone conclusion. This is news. “In the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision, Jackson County’s district attorney said he will no longer prosecute some state weapons laws, including a ban on concealed weapons,” lacrossetribune.com reports. “Gerald Fox said in a news release the court’s ruling ‘immediately renders some of Wisconsin’s current laws unconstitutional’ and therefore his office will not accept police referrals for violations of statutes that prohibit carrying concealed weapons, loaded firearms in vehicles, possession of firearms in public buildings or bars and the possession of switchblades.” Switchblades? Fox’s statement [download pdf here] sets the stage for some serious argy-bargy on the gun control front . . .
“All of these statutes constitute unjustifiable infringements on the fundamental right of every law-abiding American to arm themselves for self-defense. Does preventing the barkeep from protecting herself when she carries the bank bag home from the tavern make sense? Not here, not anymore.”
Spinning air movement device meet excrement. ‘Cause the cops serving and protecting the County’s 18k residents are NOT on board.
Black River Falls police Chief Don Gilberg said he disagrees with Fox’s assessment and that his officers will continue to enforce state and local gun laws.
“We don’t think it’s a good public policy,” Gilberg said. “It’ll make our community less safe. We don’t want people walking into the courthouse or city hall or god knows where (carrying firearms).”
Yes, well, this, from Fox’s statement:
“Only by the strictest adherence to firearm safety rules and common sense will we show that the elitists who seek to disarm all of us are wrong,” he wrote, “and that every law abiding citizen can be trusted to protect themselves.”
This puts Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen in the media crosshairs. Where he wants to be (of course). Along with 16 other attorneys general, Hollen filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the McDonald Case supporting the incorporation of the Second Amendment.
If Hollen takes Fox’s policy statewide, the rest of the states’ gun control laws could fall like dominoes, pressuring the states that didn’t sign up to get with the program. Here are the 16 amicus states.