2nd Amendment sanctuary movement spreads to Wisconsin with a 2nd county approving a measure.

A photo of the meeting. WULK.

The 2nd Amendment Sanctuary movement has spread to Wisconsin with a 2nd county approving a pro-gun rights measure. WULK. Brown County which is in Northeast Wisconsin and mostly consists of Green Bay and its suburbs unanimously approved a measure that would call the county a 2nd Amendment Sanctuary and show opposition to new State and Federal gun laws. However, language that would allow the sheriff to ignore gun laws was removed. Florence county, in Northern Wisconsin, passed a similar resolution last November. Around 50 people attended the meeting with the majority speaking out in favor of the resolution. A full vote on the measure is expected to be voted on on January 15th.

My Comment:

I admit to totally dropping the ball here. I hadn't heard about this at all until today even though the public hearings were on Monday. Since I live in the region I could have gone to the meeting and taken pictures and given a first hand report. Unfortunately I rarely pay attention to local news so I missed it. Very disappointing. 

For a little background, Brown County is where Green Bay is. It's a fairly conservative area despite Green Bay being the 3rd largest city in the state. There is a decent amount of tension between this area of the state and the Milwaukee/Madison area which is much more liberal and more likely to support gun restrictions. But up here? Basically everyone has a gun and the start of hunting season is literally a holiday where I work. 

I've got mixed feelings about the measure. On the one hand I am glad that Brown County is doing this. Though our new Democrat Governor is pretty much powerless due to GOP control of the rest of the government, he has proposed new laws, including the much hated red flag laws. This new measure is a clear message to Tony Evers that gun control is not going to happen here. 

But it stopped short of doing what I wanted it to do. The council dropped the part of the measure that would stop enforcement of stupid federal or state laws. That part was removed because the board was too sacred of getting punished for it. Florence County up north was able to pass a full resolution so I am somewhat disappointed that we didn't do the same thing. 

I think the measure is mostly symbolic in nature and has less to do with what Tony Evers wants to do with what Governor Northam and the Democrats are doing in Virginia. In that state more than 100 counties and cities have filed these 2nd amendment sanctuary resolutions and the people here in the Green Bay mostly want to avoid the nonsense that is happening in that state right now. 

Wisconsin actually has very good gun laws. None of the nonsense that has passed in other states has passed here and we actually got new laws in favor of gun rights under Scott Walker. Indeed, though we were late on the CCW train, open carry was always legal here and in general the state is more friendly to guns than it was 30 years ago. Unlike many other states our laws are trending in the right direction and this resolution is another step in the right direction. 

Still, I don't expect much to happen here in Wisconsin. I can't see Tony Evers ever getting the votes to pass any new gun laws. There is always a chance of something happening at the federal level and this resolution will show that there will be resistance to other laws.