A Wisconsin Assemblyman has a noticed a problem:

State Assembly Democrat Josh Zepnick said he has many constituents who have been victims of violent crime and that Milwaukee in particular has seen an uptick in violent crime around convenience stores.

But don’t worry, as nacsonline.com tells us, Milwaukeean Brother JayZee has a solution…

A bill proposed by a Wisconsin legislator would ban concealed weapons at Wisconsin gas stations.

That’s right, Zepnick’s brainstorm to discourage crime is to A) make armed robbery even more illegal(er) and 2) ensure all law-abiding customers at the local Stop-n-Rob will be defenseless.

JayZee’s A.B. 406 will make it a felony for permit-holders to either carry or have in their vehicle a loaded revolver, pistol, cap-lock or flint-lock muzzle loading handgun (but apparently match-locks are kosher). Not only will this law provide a much safer working environment for Wisconsin’s thriving criminal community, but it will enable any thugs who have eyes and a couple of working brain-cells to determine which potential victims have (unloaded) guns in their vehicles.

Seriously, will someone please explain to me what mental process do the antis go through to come up with ideas like this?

32 COMMENTS

  1. Drives me nuts!I this wrote to him the other day: (I’m not in his district, but I’m still in the same city, so I figured he could read my thoughts)

    “I write to you today to ask you to reconsider your above bill.As a police officer, in my experience, criminals do not care about “gun free” zones or other legislative barriers to their criminal activities.(If they did, wouldn’t they not rob, steal, or kill?)The sole result of making it a felony to possess a firearm on gas station property would be prohibiting law abiding citizens the means to defend themselves from criminals while at a gas station. Let’s be honest, as a police officer, this law will not affect my ability to carry concealed, but I am concerned about the line of thinking behind the bill.

    If your goal is to increase the penalties for committing a crime at or against a gas station, (which it appears based on the rest of the text) why not propose to make it a felony for an unlicensed individual to CCW at a gas station? Let the law abiding citizens who have gone through the CCW application process carry as they may choose to do so. For that matter, I am sure that there are gas station owners out there who welcome citizens who are CCW; why not allow the individual property owners to post (or not post) their property as codified in the current CCW laws?”

    No response from him, not even a canned pre-written response.

  2. Just when I thought it was safe to travel to my neighbor to the east, this pubic servant comes up with yet more statist asshattery. Seriously, Wisconsin. WTF?

  3. What mental process?
    Look at the dimwits picture, do you see two functioning brain cells behind those eyes and that dopey grin.
    Living in Wisconsin, perhaps he has permanent brain freeze.
    If I am reading correctly it is just a proposed bill. Hopefully saner brains will prevail.
    Of course if it becomes law I really can’t place the blame with Assemblyman Zepnick. After all he was probably a dimwit before he was elected.
    That is the frightening thing.

  4. “Seriously, will someone please explain to me what mental process do the antis go through to come up with ideas like this?”

    Sure – that’s easy. They inhale, inject or ingest large quantities of the recreational drug or beverage of their choice, and then go “cool, man … think we need a law.” And in a drug-hazed or drunken stupor, they come up with these idiotic, feel-good examples of what passes for thought on the back side of the IQ bell curve. Don’t waste your time trying to understand insanity.

  5. So when I travel to Wisconsin to visit relatives, I’m not allowed to buy gas? Should I plan to bring all the gas I will need with me?

    Or do the gas stations deliver gas to the car now?

    Is it something in the water in Wisconsin? Do they write laws like this sober?

    • Sarcasm!? Why sarcasm?
      It is every bit as good an idea and would have exactly the same affect.
      No, wait! It is better because it would not affect CCP holders!
      I think you are a genius.
      Perhaps you should move to Wisconsin and run for office.

  6. Seriously, will someone please explain to me what mental process do the antis go through to come up with ideas like this?

    It’s actually really straightforward, even if it ultimately makes no sense. It’s the failure to make the distinction between violent crime and legitimate violence. A gun is a weapon, a tool for inflicting harm, and therefore has violence as a part of its underlying purpose. What that doesn’t tell you is the motive behind that violence. It can be for violent crime, like when the armed robber shoots or threatens to shoot the convenience store clerk, or it can be for legitimate violence, when the law abiding citizen shoots or threatens to shoot the armed robber to prevent him from harming anyone.

    If you fail to make that distinction, then it’s easy to take the next step and think that by banning them, you’re getting rid of tools of violent crime. Like I said, it makes no sense, because there is a distinction, and bans remove guns from only one side of that line.

  7. We could cut the crime rate at gas stations if we banned cars within the confines of the gas station property. Problem solved!

  8. I bet 7-11 clerks are happy; all they have to do now to ensure their safety from robbery is put a sign in the window with an arrow that says, “Hit the gas station next door; you know they’re unarmed.”

  9. Damn, this is kinda embarrassing that we have so much stuff on TTAG from Wisconsin that makes the legislators here not look so bright. I really hope things turn around, especially when it comes to carry on campus.

  10. Take another real good look at his photo. If it doesn’t look like some re-touched work of art from “Cheesy XYZ Studios”, I don’t know what is. Look at the little white dots in his eyeballs; those are the two remaining brain cells just before burning out. (Makes one wonder what he does in real life…casket salesman?)

    • I think folks commenting on the picture are on to something. Look at it. Carefully.

      This was probably one of 20? 30? pictures taken by a photographer and HE chose this one. He thinks this is his best look. Imagine that.

      Smarmy. Vacant look. Doofus smile. What a shame that Google bombs are so yesterday…wouldn’t this make a great picture to show up for a search for a “doofus?” Or maybe “drooling moron?” Or, “My first BJ.”

  11. Dear Assemblyman: So your bill would prohibit screened and licensed folks from being armed around the neighborhood store, making it safer for criminals to ROB those stores? That’s some progressive and common sense thinking right there!

    Some suggestions:

    1. Outlaw poverty. Make it a crime for any family to have an income of less than 100,000.00, (unless they are union or public workers, of course!)

    2. Fix the environment! Make it a felony to expel carbon dioxide or methane. (Union and Public workers excepted.)

    3. Make education universal: Grant a doctorate to all newborns. (Union and Public Service babies get “summa cum laude.”)

    4. Celebrate diversity! Divide the state population by the number of any racial or cultural groups identifiable by a state agency and assign IDs to the citizenry exactly balancing the groups. Divide the days of the year into the number of identity groups and require their week to be celebrated by the designatees.

    5. Balance the budget: For any year when the Wisconsin state expenditures exceed the income, seize assets and property at a rate of 100% starting with the highest income tax filed….OF REPUBLICANS!!!!!!!!

    Nirvana!

    • Can I steal your “give a doctorate to all newborns” bit?

      If this guy had half the sentience God gave my cat, he’d know that people got shot to death in Milwaukee at gas stations before the CCW got passed, and fairly regularly. Two made-the-news murders from the past few years that I can remember include a wrestling coach who volunteered with inner-city boys, and a college basketball player home on break. I don’t know if either of them would have been licensed, but they should have had a choice.

  12. Actually, this bill represents some good, cogent thinking on the part of the Wisconsin democrats.

    As a foundational concept, we all need to understand that making a living and earning money should and will always be given extra protection by politicians, because that’s what drives our economy.

    The Concealed Carry legislation has proven to be a bureaucratic nightmare – as well as a source of extreme fear for personal safety – for one of the most productive segments of urban Wisconsin’s work force.

    Spokesmodels for The Union of Low-Life Criminal Scum (the ULLCS, which is an offshoot of the SEIU) have been in repeated contact with state lawmakers about how the new Concealed Carry law is unfairly depriving armed robbers (i.e., “the working poor”) of their ability to make a living and support their families and children.

    “We have a long tradition in this area” said one union spokesmodel, “and the presence of these gun nuts is unfairly depriving us of our hereditory rights to safely harvest retail establishments for their cash and jewelry.” Said one young thug standing outside of the union meeting hall, “shee-it, with the economy the way it is today, you’d think that our legislature would worry more about creating jobs, not wiping out existing jobs. Now who’s gonna support my twelve kids?!”

    In response to this unfortunate situation, lawmakers reportedly offered to ban Concealed Carry in either “Retail Automotive – Fuel” businesses, or in “Franchise Daycare Centers”. While the UULCS has complained that “there’s no friggen’ cash in daycare centers, so this isn’t really a choice”, union leadership has decided to provisionally accept this offer, with the understanding that, if Franchise Daycare Centers are found to have increased their daily cash holdings at any point in the future, the union will review this issue.

    Assemblyman Zepnick noted for the record at today’s hearing that “we have no business allowing hobbyists and cop-wannabes to carry weapons wherever they see fit when it interferes with working people’s livelihoods. This bill preserves criminals’ long-held rights to make a living and feed their kids as they see fit.”

  13. “Seriously, will someone please explain to me what mental process do the antis go through to come up with ideas like this?”

    Oh, that one’s easy. The ultimate goal is a total gun ban. We can’t get that because of that pesky 2nd Amendment. So we’ll just make it as inconvenient as possible to carry one. Either no citizen will carry, or we can arrest them and take their guns. If no one carries a gun, we’ll have a de facto ban.

  14. “… flint-lock muzzle loading handgun …”

    You really gotta watch those flintlocks. They can be pret-t-ty deadly. Just ask a pirate.

    State Assembly Democrat Josh Zepnick looks like a real wise man guy.

    He probably hasn’t thought of this one: the bad guys with guns who intend to hold up a “convenience store” (I wonder why he didn’t elaborate on that term) are probably not going to say to themselves, “Ooops, I can’t take this S&W .38-cal revolver to that 7-11. It’s the law.”

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