{image1} There's a whiff of gun-totin' vigilantism in the air, thanks to politicians like Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
They think the answer to crime, and this is the crucial point -- the perception that a crime might occur -- is getting more guns in what they say are the right hands.
In Florida, that soon will include the right to open fire, arguably one of the predictable outcomes of Bucher's goal of what has called "leveling the playing field" between armed criminals and everyone else.
This breakout of macho politicking on behalf of packing heat comes at an odd time, as southeastern Wisconsin and other states have been wracked by especially gruesome gun violence, including:
The massacre of Brookfield churchgoers at a service in a hotel conference room by a fellow parishioner who killed eight people and wounded four more.
The suicide in West Allis of the angry litigant who had earlier killed two members of a federal judge's family in Chicago.
The slaughter at the Red Lake Indian reservation school in Minnesota by a student who also killed his grandfather and the grandfather's companion. The weapons in the shootings included a handgun belonging to the grandfather, who was a longtime police officer.
The shooting in Texas of a high school football coach by the hothead parent of one of the team's players.
Despite all this spilled blood -- and the routinely under-reported gun suicides, household-shooting accidents and domestic assaults -- some elected officials and the National Rifle Association are more aggressively pushing guns and armed behavior.
Bucher is heading the investigation into the Brookfield mayhem. In that incident, a mild-mannered man named Terry Ratzmann set aside his vegetable gardening and greenhouse tending to shoot up the church service with a handgun apparently purchased legally at a gun shop.
Because he and other Wisconsin district attorneys had earlier spoken out against legalizing the carrying of concealed weapons, Bucher spent a lot of time explaining why he told the Sunday, April 3 New York Times "We need to put more guns in the hands of 'law-abiding citizens,'" and that allowing concealed carry would "level the playing field. If the person you're fighting has a gun and all you have is your fists, you lose."
Level the playing field? Or turn it into a battlefield?
Time will tell.
Bucher denied he implied to The New York Times that concealed carry would have prevented or stemmed the Brookfield shootings. But his remarks set off a firestorm -- and one that was magnified -- because he is an announced Republican candidate for attorney general against the incumbent, Democrat Peg Lautenschlager.
Through a spokesman, Lautenschlager called Bucher's remarks "appalling" and a flip-flop. Another Republican challenger, former U.S. Attorney J.B. Von Hollen, issued a critical press release.
Bucher denied his views on concealed carry were inconsistent, saying he favored concealed carry with state-mandated regulations that protected law enforcement making traffic stops. Wisconsin is one of a handful of states that prohibits concealed carry.
There are three overriding problems with concealed carry, which was vetoed by Gov. Jim Doyle and which he would veto again if concealed carry passes the Legislature again.
The first problem is that more guns in circulation puts police officers at risk in many situations -- from traffic stops to domestic violence calls to breaking up bar fights.
The second problem is that greater gun ownership leads to more accidental or deliberate gun use in the home. Studies show a higher rate of shootings in homes where firearms are kept, especially among children.
And the greatest problem is that it leaves up to the gun-toter the responsibility for making the correct, split-second decision whether to shoot or hold fire.
It can be an unforgiving choice, and one that even veteran law enforcement officers, with more extensive firearms training, say is a difficult thing to get right.
Police officers have shot people they believed had weapons, only to learn in the unhappy aftermath there was no weapon at all, or that what was displayed had actually been a comb, or a cassette tape.
And after a shooting by a concealed carry licensee, what observer or commentator could say with certainty or credibility the situation wasn't really, truly threatening, that the shooter didn't have to "level the playing field" and use his or her legally carried handgun?
We don't yet know, and may never know, why the Brookfield church shooter shot himself and his fellow church members. But is it possible that in his troubled mind he was acting against something he found threatening, no matter how illogical or wrong we think or we know he was.
Concealed carry will make it easier for more people to have guns available to them when they snap.
So are we looking at a level playing field or a minefield?
In 2002, a Galveston, Texas man was sentenced to six years in prison for shooting and wounding his girlfriend because he was afraid she was going to say -- not that she actually said it, but was about to say -- the words "New Jersey."
This is a true story.
The shooter, Thomas Ray Mitchell, 54, told authorities those certain words, including "New Jersey," "Wisconsin," "Mars" and "Snickers" made him terribly angry.
When he was afraid that Barbara Jenkins was about to say "New Jersey," he wounded her with three pistol shots.
Mitchell had a history of instability, and the rest of us can say he was crazy. But two psychiatrists found him sane enough to stand trial and Mitchell did not plead insanity.
What else might lead an unhinged person to shoot, or a "sane" person to lose it long enough to start firing?
A traffic jam, or worse, a fender bender? Those noisy kids outside early on a quiet Saturday morning? A hard foul on the playground basketball court? Failing a final exam? Getting dumped? Somebody looking at you funny after a few hours in a tavern?
A bad call by the referee at the kids' soccer game? In Canton, Texas, some sort of disagreement between a high school football coach and the father of one of the players led the father earlier this month to critically wound the coach with a .45 automatic pistol.
Plenty of townsfolk stepped forward to say the parent was a loose cannon, but is it possible -- not defensible, but possible -- that in the shooter's mind, the coach's actions morphed into something threatening enough to push the shooter to open fire?
And it's gunfire -- not the mere concealed carrying of unfired weapons -- that's where the state of Florida is headed. Gov. Jeb Bush said he will sign a bill passed by the Legislature that extends the right of deadly self-defense to situations on the street, the baseball diamond or anywhere a gun-carrying person feels seriously threatened.
The bill, which was the top priority of the National Rifle Association in Florida in 2005, gives a person feeling threatened "the right to stand his or her own ground and meet force with force," including deadly force, if the person feeling threatened perceives a deadly threat.
One pro-concealed carry Florida Legislator said the bill rightfully eliminated the current Florida standard, which is "the duty to retreat." So in Florida from now on, you can comport yourself like Dirty Harry or New York City subway shooter Bernard Goetz: there's no reason to back down and you won't be prosecuted for it.
Snowbirds from frozen Wisconsin better brush up on duck-and-cover maneuvers when they fly to Florida for the winter: bystanders and everyday pedestrians in pistol range should include Kevlar and helmets in their everyday wear.
It probably won't take long for an innocent person to take a bullet from a pistol packing Floridian whose aim and judgment about threat-perception were off-target.
A different version of taking the law into one's own hands is underway in southern Arizona. That's where a citizen militia calling itself "The Minutemen'' has decided to help the U.S. Border Patrol stop illegal border crossings from Mexico.
President Bush, perhaps unaware of his Florida brother's enthusiastic endorsement of the armed populace, called the Minutemen "vigilantes," but they're motoring along the Arizona-Mexico border with guns and night-vision binoculars and amped-up adrenaline, claiming they're deterring the flow of illegal immigrants.
As of this writing, no one has gotten hurt, and the reported threats of retaliation by Mexican gangs, who had their own definition of a leveled playing field, have not materialized.
No one disagrees that we're a pretty stressed-out society these days.
We're dealing with everything from family breakups to rising gas prices to deep unease after 9/11. In traffic, we've got road rage. In the workplace, we've got legions of consultants leading anger management workshops.
On the political landscape, we've got the take-no-prisoners politics of complete and personal destruction fed by talk radio.
Anger is in. Moderation and compromise, and consensus and compassion, are out.
Encouraging people to carry pistols in their pockets and purses is the wrong way to steer people through a complex, changing world. The logical extension of the Bucher/Bush/Minutemen mentality is that every home, car, briefcase and student backpack contains a gun, or the suggestion that there is one, with an owner that's ready to bring it on.
Bucher said that throwing a punch is a loser's strategy.
A different approach for all public officials -- regardless of whether they are in a political campaign or not, regardless of what's on the NRA Top 10 list, regardless of what's trendy on the far-right -- is to educate people so they won't make that fist in the first place, won't escalate a situation and certainly won't grab a gun and take the law into their own hands.
Rowen is a veteran journalist and policy advisor who used to work for the ex-Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of OnMilwaukee.com, its advertisers or editorial staff.
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