MADISON — Tens of thousands of people downloaded permit applications within hours of Wisconsin’s new concealed carry law taking effect Tuesday, underscoring gun enthusiasts’ pent-up frustration over years of waiting for authorization to carry hidden weapons.
Forty-eight other states already allow some form of concealed carry. Debate has raged for years in Wisconsin over whether allowing hidden weapons would make people safer or lead to more violence, but Republicans finally passed a law this summer allowing the practice. Tuesday was the first day state residents could apply for a permit.
“I would say yes, it’s been a long time coming,” said Rob Kovach, 38, chief of staff for state Sen. Frank Lasee, R-DePere, as he dropped his application off at the state Justice Department’s Capitol office Tuesday morning. “I just want to be able to exercise my right if I feel (I need to).”
The Justice Department is responsible for issuing permits. People must mail the paperwork to the agency in Madison or, like Kovach, drop it off at the state Capitol or the agency’s Milwaukee office.
DOJ spokeswoman Dana Brueck said as of mid-afternoon Tuesday the agency had received 145 applications, approved 123 and printed 85 permits.
There could be thousands more applications coming. A DOJ website began offering downloadable applications at midnight, and as of noon, it had received almost 800,000 hits and visitors had downloaded at least 83,000 applications, Brueck said.
It’s impossible to know how many applications may be in the mail, but dozens of people made the trip to the Capitol to file in person and the office phone was ringing off the hook Tuesday morning with people calling about concealed carry applications.
About a dozen members of Wisconsin Carry, Inc., an organization that advocates for gun rights, were among the first to file at the Capitol office. Some wore T-shirts emblazoned with the organization’s logo and empty holsters on their belts.
Matt Slavik, 58, an information technology worker from Brookfield, downloaded his application at 1 a.m. He said he couldn’t sleep and felt like a kid waiting for Christmas morning.
“(The law) means I can protect myself and my family,” Slavik said. “It’s not the gun I love. It’s the people it protects.”
Paul Fisher, another member of the Wisconsin Carry group, said he didn’t sleep much Monday night either. But the 47-year-old information technology worker from Elkhorn still complained about having to shell out the $50 application fee.
“I’d rather spend the money on ammunition than spend it on permission for what is a right,” he said.
The National Rifle Association has been pushing Wisconsin legislators for the better part a decade to allow concealed carry. Republicans passed it in 2003 and 2006, but then-Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, vetoed both proposals.
Last November’s elections shifted the political landscape, though. Republican Scott Walker won the governor’s office and the GOP seized control of both legislative houses. Walker signed concealed carry legislation in early July, about six months into his term.
Under the law and DOJ rules implementing it, anyone who is at least 21 years old, hasn’t been convicted of a felony and takes at least four hours of firearms training can obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon from the state Justice Department. The agency has 45 days to process an application until December, when the window becomes 21 days.
Permit holders face a patchwork of rules banning concealed carry, however. The law prohibits weapons in schools, police stations, courtrooms. Anyone drinking alcohol in bar can’t carry and private property owners can ban weapons in their buildings if they see fit.
Walker’s administration has decided to allow concealed weapons in almost all state buildings it controls, including areas of the state Capitol that the Legislature and state Supreme Court don’t control.
Republicans have said they will allow weapons on the floor of both the Senate and Assembly and in meeting rooms of both houses. Assembly Republicans plan to allow weapons in that chamber’s overhead gallery, although Senate Republicans have banned them in their gallery. The Supreme Court justices plan to flesh out their policy next week.
Even though the permit application process has barely begun, GOP legislators already are demanding the Justice Department delete the minimum four-hour training requirement. The Justice Department added that provision to the implementation rules even though the law doesn’t expressly create a time standard.
The NRA has taken issue with the standard, accusing Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen of overstepping his authority. Van Hollen has countered his agency had to define training somehow, but the Legislature’s rules committee is set to hold a hearing Wednesday on the time standard Wednesday.
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