subscribeNow You’ve Done It
by dusty on Aug.11, 2009 , under Uncategorized
Oh dear God, here we go. I guess we’ll address tales from vacation another time, because there’s a whole mess about to blow up.
Seems Madison police got a call this weekend from a concerned Sconnie in the vicinity of State Street. What had this intrepid Madisonian so frazzled was that he or she had witnessed a young man out for a stroll sporting a holstered handgun hanging at his side.
This isn’t a regular sight in any city, especially in Madison, but in recent months it has become more common. You see, while Wisconsin is one of two states that bans its residents from carrying concealed weapons, there’s no law on the books barring residents from strapping some iron to their hip and openly flaunting it for all the world to see, as long as they don’t use it to raise a ruckus.
Last April, his honor the Attorney General, JB Van Hollen, inexplicably released a memo stating that it is, in fact, legal to wear an openly visible firearm. Uh, thanks, we knew that.
Now, that right to carry a sidearm in plain view isn’t bulletproof. There are plenty of places where both the law and common sense dictate it would be inadvisable to allow just anyone to pack heat. Schools, taverns and a handful of public buildings are all off limits. Wearing a gun is an automatic grounds for police to stop you and ask you what you’re up to, though they can’t haul you away without further cause. And if you’ve tired yourself out after an afternoon of hefting that .357 all up and down State Street, you’ve got to take the bullets out and put the gun in a case before you get into your car and drive home.
But while AG JB’s memo that the sky was blue shouldn’t have turned a lot of heads, it somehow became a rallying cry for Wisconsin’s pro-gun crowd. Over the course of the summer, open carry advocates started getting giddy with the sheer number of options they had at their disposal to celebrate Van Hollen’s opinion. Some have even gone so far as to host open-carry picnics, which my old WSUM buddy Lou Hillman had a chance to document in Green Bay this weekend.
I’ll tell you one thing. While I’d have been inclined to check out the grub and meet the folk, you couldn’t have paid me to be the poor sap that tried to start a friendly game of Frisbee at that picnic.
As with any sort of activists, what these open carry folks are really gunning for is attention. For frig’s sake, they have a web forum dedicated to discussing their experiences carrying firearms openly.
And now, you can probably expect to read 28-year-old Travis Yates’s account there, about how he was out for a stroll on a fine Saturday evening, sporting his sidearm, when he was accosted by Madison’s finest, detained and written up for disorderly conduct.
Yes, when police responded to the concerned citizen’s call in the State Street area Saturday, they found Yates proudly “celebrating” Van Hollen’s memo just a few short blocks away from where most of our state’s elected and appointed leaders make their living. Instead of asking Yates a few questions, hearing he was “making a political point” and letting him go on his merry way, the officer loaded the nutter into his car and drove Yates to his own house, where he was instructed to put the gun away.
And then the officer damned us all by writing Yates a disorderly conduct ticket because “his actions disturbed other citizens.”
If I may: Madison General Ordinances 24.02: Disorderly Conduct. (1) (applies to anyone who) “In a public or private place, engages in violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud or otherwise disorderly conduct under circumstances in which such conduct tends to cause or provoke a disturbance.”
While it’s a broad definition, trying to make the argument that Yates commited disorderly conduct by “disturbing” passersby on the street would never stand up in court. I see more disturbing things than a guy with a holstered gun almost every time I walk down State Street. It’s why I keep coming back.
The city needs to drop the municipal ticket immediately, or they’re giving Yates exactly what he wants. They’re making him a “martyr of the movement,” a moth crushed against the wheel of the liberal machine, Madison.
Full disclosure: I’m a gun owner (and a decent shot), I sit the fence on concealed carry and hesitantly support open carry. I look at a gun as a tool, and as a former boy scout, it’s my duty to “be prepared” for anything. When it comes to carrying in public, I figure if somebody’s really interested in self-protection and not secretly hoping they get mugged so they can pull their piece and gak the bad guy, they’ll be tough enough to wear the weapon where it’s obvious. After all, when it comes to protecting one’s self from violence, what’s more likely to scare off the bad guys: a tool that’s plainly visible, or one that’s tucked into a shoulder holster?
I’ve certainly never felt the need to carry a firearm in Madison.
So if dopes like Yates want to tote their rods about town in some imagined act of defiance, why do people like the initial complainant and the police officer give them just what they want — someone to defy? What would have just been one harmless nutter on the street who thought he was making some sort of point will now be a crowd of armed, angry people with a legitimate grievance.
If you don’t think it will happen, it’s already started. The readers of that very forum I linked to are already discussing an open-carry rally to protest Yates’s ticket. ”Persecute” one of their herd, and the pro-gun crowd will show up in force.
And much to my chagrin, in this case they’ll be in the right.
I find it a little disheartening when Madison lives up to its supposed “reputation” – ”Madistan” and “eighty square miles surrounded by reality” and ” the People’s Republic of Madison” and all the other spiteful cliches we hear the city called.
Because of this event, which is likely to escalate, those of us who just want to call Madison “home” — who don’t like it when peaceable citizens doing nothing illegal are detained and don’t care for armed angry mobs with a point to prove — we’ll never hear the end of it.
9 Comments for this entry
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August 11th, 2009 on 3:00 am
Dusty, I was on facebook and saw your expression on this particular subject. I just thought I would say hello first off, and secondly I would like to say that I completely would agree with Yates. Guns are a constitutional right and for people to react to them how they have been just blows my mind. It doesnt matter if people are carrying guns in madison, milwaukee, or Iraq where I currently am, people need to understand one very easy to remember rule. The bad guys are going to have guns regardless if we do or not, if the sight of a non concealed weapon even deters one criminal from committing a crime to another or person or even property then wouldnt it be worth it?
August 11th, 2009 on 4:04 am
I live up in Cambria and we recently had to ah, depose our police chief by dissolving the police department. It was the only practical solution to a thorny and long-standing problem. Really.
Half the people in town and all sorts of not-people-from-town began peeing themselves in imagined terror. 9-11!
Riots and mayhem most assuredly did not ensue, we’re dealing. Most people aren’t out to get you, even the odd one with a piece strapped on.
Or, you can be all like, “When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!”
Your choice.
—
(However, I do wish we had a solution to the influx of Amish who appeared soon after we canned the chief, they’ve become quite a problem what with their brazen ride-by tauntings and all…)
August 11th, 2009 on 7:23 am
Great job, Dusty….rousing that rabble!
August 11th, 2009 on 12:06 pm
Oh for cryin’ out loud.
I think this guy is a moron for carrying the gun around State St. – but I agree that the ticket is unwarranted. And that it just feeds into his need for attention and a sense of martyrdom. Lame.
August 11th, 2009 on 3:00 pm
I don’t think the person who called the cops really did anything wrong. He saw something that concerned him, and he contacted the authorities. It isn’t a decision I would have made, but I can understand why he did.
The police officer, on the other hand, did worse than making a bad call. He was either ignorant of the law itself, or he was grossly ignorant of the potential ramifications of his actions. If Yates was really just hanging around and happened to have a gun that he wasn’t pointing at anyone, he’s being no more disorderly than a really big, strong guy.
What do you think — are the police going to back down on the ticket, or will it become a big issue? I hope the former, both because they’re actually wrong and because I don’t think more publicity on this issue will do anyone any good.
August 11th, 2009 on 3:42 pm
I’m okay with everything the officer did. Am I comfortable with guns? No. Would I be comfortable walking down State St if I saw people carrying guns? Nope. Honestly, what’s the point of carrying one down there? I imagine most business have or will ban guns, therefore leaving someone with a gun little to do but walk up and down the street. Why?
August 11th, 2009 on 4:46 pm
Because it’s his constitutional right to, JJ. I agree, his motives for doing it are out of wack. He was clearly hoping for exactly the confrontation he got, and that’s wrong. But it’s like someone burning a flag. Do I agree with their actions or the message they’re sending? Not always. But I recognize that they have the right to do it. And if everyone in this story had respected that right, it wouldn’t BE a story and we could all go about our business.
Michael, I’m with you in hoping the city does what’s right and lets this guy off the hook, because he seems like the type to fight it and REALLY turn this into a big production. Unfortunately, it sounds like officials in the police department and the city attorney’s office are gearing up for a big fight on this. See: http://www.madison.com/tct/news/461607 .
Shane, good to hear from you buddy, and thanks (again) for your service to the country. I figured we’d agree on this issue, even though we hold those opinions for different reasons.
Finally, I just want to say that random overthrows of entire police departments and ride-by tauntings by the Amish are yet ANOTHER reason that Cambria is my favorite little village in the state.
August 31st, 2009 on 1:47 am
After reading your “profile,” it seems like you lead such a common place existence, yes, no essence to your mundane, run of the mill life. Just like the lives everyone else is leading.
Such rehearsed answers, so predicable.
Haven’t you heard the Emerson quote of “marching to your own drummer?” Or, head Thoreau’s WALDEN speaking just to you saying, “most men lead lives of quiet desperation?”
Maybe not?
In 100 years, what will be your legacy besides dust? Will anyone remember you or know you once lived upon this planet? What will be your contribution besides taking?
I guess the time is now to decide that…..sadly, I think you’ve already decided.
Not that my life is any better, perhaps the reason I wrote you after seeing that profile on WKEZ radio. Sorry to be insulting, if I was. I did not mean to.
M L P , III
October 25th, 2009 on 4:12 am
You never felt a need to carry a firearm? That proves exactly what to those of us who are going through our days terrorized by stalking ex-abusers, or getting death threats because of our stance on reproductive choice, or being bashed for being queer, or harassed and attacked for being mobility impaired or old or ugly or poor?
The problem with Madison is so many of you live in la la land–a land of privilege and safety. It’s not just that you don’t know what others live with, you don’t want to know. This is what conservatives mean when they refer to liberal fascism and elitism. You implicitly side with the powerful by denying anything bad ever happens here. And if it does, well, it’s just those IN MIGRANTS from Detroit and Chicago, which means black people. So you’re racist as well.
The point of carrying on State Street is that that’s where I was beaten after taking a rural Columbia County woman for an abortion on the west side. I was followed. I don’t give a rat’s rear if it makes you uncomfortable to see my pistol. I’m tired of being cast as prey for my leftist queer pro-abortion etc. politics.
But don’t let me interfere with your fantasies there in White Male Ph.D. CondoLand.