Sometimes you wonder where the party of personal responsibility, small government and local control gets their off the sanity continuum ideas. The latest off the charts wing nut is Wisconsin State Representative Bob Gannon (R-Slinger). His proposal is to put the fear of insurance rates into the hearts of business owners who have legally (under the Concealed Carry Legislation he and his cohort passed some time back) posted their establishments as no weapon areas. What does Rep. Gannon want to do?
Wisconsin’s 2011 concealed carry law creates immunity from civil liability for gun-related deaths for businesses that allow guns on their property.
Gannon’s proposal, dubbed the “Disarmed Citizen Compensation Act,” would go a step further in discouraging gun-free zones by allowing a victim of gun violence to sue businesses with such bans and recover triple the amount of damages without regard to who was at fault.
Obviously this is a threat to many small businesses who would see their insurance rates climb if they didn’t remove their ban on weapons on their premises. So sorry about private property rights and local control and the free market…
And what about personal responsibility? “without regard to who was at fault” says it all. Doesn’t this fly in the face of the meme that guns don’t kill people? Couldn’t this imply that the gun was at fault?
Needless to say this a horrible idea…one that I would be surprised to see the rest of the GOP get behind. They will lose the support of small business and probably insurance companies and agents.
So just hours after this and similar articles came out, I found this story of some interest:
Milwaukee police say Marquette University students were injured when a gun accidentally discharged at the entrance of a restaurant on campus.
A statement from the Milwaukee Police Department says the accident was reported shortly before 7:30 p.m. Wednesday when a man accidentally discharged a firearm near the front door of Sobelman’s Pub & Grill.
The statement says three women and one man suffered minor injuries that didn’t require medical treatment when they were struck by debris caused by the discharge.
The department says the man who discharged the gun fled the area and it wasn’t clear whether he was injured.
So Sobelman’s Pub would be at fault in this case if Rep. Gannon’s idea was already the law? Does that sound even remotely reasonable?
PS (I don’t know what Sobelman’s Pub policy is on weapons on their premises).
So, someone with a grudge against a business can go in with a gun, do some damage (oops, the gun I wasn’t supposed to have in here fired ‘accidentally’ but even if it’s my fault the business owner pays), and sit back and wait for a triple fine. Or a gun rights advocate decides to make a statement, same result. Isn’t that kind of the same thing as breaking someone’s window and then demanding they receive a fine for vandalism?
Shouldn’t the liability really rest on those who approved the conceal carry law?
Chris Walker at “Political Heat” has several good posts discussing the increased violent crime and gun death rates since passage.