Previous Post
Next Post

Scott Walker (courtesy

“Ten states and the District of Columbia impose some form of waiting period for buying handguns,” reports. “Wisconsin’s 48-hour period has been in effect since 1976, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.” And soon it will be history. The Republican-led Assembly has just passed a bill killing the Badger State’s “cooling off” period for handgun purchases. It heads to presidential hopeful Governor Scott Walker who has declared his intention to sign it into law. In case you need a little blood pressure hike, here’s the House Democrats’ reasoning on why the measure will lead to blood in the streets . . .

Minority Democrats railed against the bill, warning it would enable people caught up in fits of rage or depression to obtain weapons quickly and kill people . . .

The bill still left Democrats shaking their heads. Democrats from Milwaukee, which has seen 67 homicides so far this year, said the waiting period is the only piece of state gun laws that work.

“It’s just going to result in more violence in our urban communities,” Rep. Fred Kessler, D-Milwaukee, a former judge, said.

Sure. Go with that. Meanwhile, the Eat Cheese or Die state is working on rolling back other gun control measures.

The Senate passed a bill that would allow off-duty, retired officers to carry guns at schools. The bill’s chief Senate sponsor, Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, said the measure would create another line of defense for students and teachers if a shooter attacks them. Opponents said allowing non-uniformed officers to carry guns at schools could scare students and could allow non-officers to carry concealed weapons without school administrators being able to interfere. They also said officers who are mentally unstable could create deadly situations in schools.

The Senate passed the measure 22-11. The Assembly approved it shortly after on a voice vote with no debate. The bill now goes to Walker. Asked whether the governor would sign it, Patrick said only that Walker would evaluate the proposal.

The Assembly also passed two bills expanding the state’s concealed carry law. One measure would allow active-duty soldiers stationed for at least a year in Wisconsin to obtain a state concealed carry license. The other would enable former police officers who worked out-of-state but now reside here to apply for a federal concealed carry license if they obtain annual training through the Wisconsin Department of Justice, sparing them a trip back to their former state to obtain the training.

Both proposals now head to the Senate.

Walker’s appeal to gun rights advocates continues to increase.

Previous Post
Next Post


  1. I’m pretty sure eating cheese and dying are not mutually exclusive. In fact I’d bet it’s quite the opposite.

    • Having lived there as a child I can assure you I still require a daily intake of cheese or I break down into a pitiful shaking mess.

  2. “They also said officers who are mentally unstable could create deadly situations in schools.”

    Wow. Just wow. Digging deep for that one.

    • A mentally unstable person can create a deadly situation anywhere, any time, regardless of whatever laws and signs you want to post.

      Why is this concept so goddamn hard for some people to understand?

    • That’s exactly what I thought, grasping a straws, really reaching – pick your preferred colloquialism.

  3. “cooling off” periods are ridiculous. No sale has to take place for a clearly agitated buyer. A person set to be violent with a firearm is unlikely to be stopped by any law. Knowingly selling to a person who is set to carry out a violent act is already unlawful in (most?) States. If you are threatened and can’t acquire protection, this is a hideous situation, can you imagine it?

    • Perhaps Wisconsin democrats are more apt to have fits of rage than the normal person. They’ve certainly shown as much.

      • Yeah. It’s that psychological projection thing. Maybe if the anti-gun Democrats weren’t so prone to moral deficiencies, it wouldn’t be an issue

    • Great point gsnyder. The person that wants to protect themselves also had to wait for 48 hours. So, if the person that wanted to harm them was already armed or came at them with any kind of weapon, including their fists or if they were much larger and stronger than the victim it would be more difficult for the victim to defend themselves. Bet they gun grabbers totally ignore that argument.

    • MN almost made me miss WI’s 48 hour period. Until i really divulged what MN’s waiting period of 7 days entails. Per MN law if you don’t have a permit a 7 day waiting period applies. HOWEVER, no one will sell to you if you don’t have a permit. By law they can do one time exceptions with 7 days, but every retailer I have encounter has refused and stated we only do permits and everyone else only does permits. If you have a permit MN is zero waiting period.

      WI ditching the 48 hour waiting period makes sense, and that state is lucky they’re doing it without the requirement of a permit like MN.

  4. I don’t think I support this 48 hour “festering hatred” period, that allows people to work themselves into a rage, thereby allowing them the mental fortitude to injure EVEN MORE people.

    Eliminate the festering hate period. Do it. For the Children(tm)

    • And ban Excel spreadsheets, where they can calculate the number of killings and woundings necessary to achieve the new world record for mass murder.



    • While I would normally agree with you on that certain areas of Milwaukee I can see this being true, however unlikely as I doubt a legally purchased firearm (under that persons name) would be used. Even over these past few years in Madison things have gotten not so good, you can ask them how that “no gun sales in the city” is working out for them. There is a shred of truth to what he is saying but if you check the little notation on the end of it you would see that “opposed to the same thing occurring 48 hours later” because as we know someone who wants to do harm will do it in any form possible.

      The 48 hour period has been an annoyance at best to myself and others, I do understand why people are against it and I also know that it won’t change anything about someone who wants to do harm. What certain counties really needs to do is start cracking down on straw purchases and making it a mandatory prosecution on anyone who lies on a purchase form.

  6. Actually, I think the cooling off period makes more people agitated. I live in one of the “Ten states and the District of Columbia” with a cooling off period. Here it is 3 days not counting weekends and legal holidays (and the day you buy it does not count as day 1) So if I purchase a new gat on Friday with Monday being a holiday, I can’t take possession of my new Glock brand Glock until the following Thursday, which agitates me instead of cooling me off

  7. I would not have a lot of the guns I do today if we had a stupid law like this in effect. I wouldn’t have wanted to drive several hours a few days later to go back and get it.

  8. As a heads up, that’s Mark Neumann in the photo above. He would have been prefferable as governor of WI, but was too right wing for those Madison types. Either way the state came out for the better.

  9. If that quote really is how the Democrats in WI feel, I have a proposal that will make them happy. That can keep the waiting period. I’m fine with that.

    Of course, since it’s the only gun law that works, before we walk away from this, I want to see an omnibus repealing every other gun law in the state. After all, if a law is ineffective, why keep it on the books?

    • “After all, if a law is ineffective, why keep it on the books?”

      It keeps your fellow lawyers employed…

      Can you think of anything more terrifying than roving bands of un-employed lawyers?


  10. This will be good for Wisconsin commerce.
    I’m twelve miles from the WI border. Why make two trips to an Illinois gun store (72 hours apart) when I can just drive up to Cheddarland and get what I need?

    Governor Walker, my sales tax dollars are on their way!

    • What about Illinois Use Tax dollars?

      I take it what you want isn’t classified as a handgun if you can buy it OTC at an out of state shop.

    • I would think that maybe, just maybe, it would be a federal felony for you, a resident of Illinois, to purchase a handgun in Wisconsin and pick it up there. You can only take possession of a handgun in Illinois, so the gun would have to be shipped to Illinois. No time saved. This federal law (intended to prevent the interstate shipment of handguns used in crime) was the subject of a lawsuit heard in the federal district court in Texas, which held the law to be unconstitutional–but being a trial court decision, it is valid only in that district in Texas (unless and until the Court of Appeals overturns that decision).

      • Pretty sure Curtis is referring to rifles/shotguns Mark N.-I’ve bought several guns in Indiana-no transfer for long guns-24hours- and I need a transfer and 72hour wait AFTER it arrives in Illinois. I got no idea about use tax-I ignore Cook CO’s and so does anyone with intelligence-Indiana has NO responsibility to report to the state they hate…

  11. My favorite aspect of waiting periods is it doesn’t matter how many guns you already own. 1st gun or 101st, you’re waiting 11 days in California.

    • Waiting periods anywhere have no relation to reality.

      Is it rational to make people who have already waited months for their license wait another ten days to pick up their gun? Or their second or third gun?

      Mass murderers usually plan obsessively, stockpiling guns and ammo for weeks, months or even years. Do the Aurora Theater Murderer give a sh1t about waiting periods?

      Will an angry spouse cool off waiting for a gun, or will he or she just stab the living sh1t out of the significant other, as did Susan Wright?

  12. California has a ten day waiting period. However, a case was fairly recently decided by a federal district court holding that the requirement is unconstitutional as applied to anyone who already owns a firearm (the plaintiffs were a gun owner, a CCW holder and a holder of a COE). The court held that there was no logical connection between the waiting period (which was enacted not as a “cooling off period” but to deny firearms to nonwhites) and acquisition of arms by people who already own guns, once the required background check has been completed. The evidence at trial indicated that the State clears at least 20% of background checks in less than 24 hours, many in less than an hour, and most of the rest in five to eight days. Once clearance has been receive from the DOJ, there is no reason whatsoever to deny an approved buyer from gaining possession.

    But of course the DOJ appealed, and the case will be in limbo for at least a couple of years, sad to say.

  13. The 48 hour waiting period was established in the 1980s when the local police department needed that much time to conduct the background check by hand. They would look in their 3×5 index card file for the name of the purchaser. If they found the name, they would pull the case file and review it.

    The idea of this being a “cooling off” period did not occur to anyone until years later, after the NICs check was introduced. This is a very good and logical law for Wisconsin.

    Now, rather than having only one set of local files reviewed by the local police, there are perhaps a dozen national databases that are checked in literally 10 or 15 minutes. Better research completed faster means there is no logical reason to have the LGS hold a handgun AFTER the NICs check comes back with a proceed code. It just forces the buyer to drive back to the LGS 48 hours later so the cleck can hand them their purchase.

    This, all while the buyer is carrying their EDC gun.

    • This is exactly the legislative reasoning for enactment of the California waiting period. It was 5 days, then 15. then 10, all to allow the DOJ time to run its searches. And the trail court recognized as much, dismissing the DOJ’s claim–unsupported by any authority or legislative record–that the waiting period should be affirmed as protecting public safety by providing for a cooling off period. Which is of course illogical and irrelevant for anyone who already owns a gun.

  14. Minority Democrats railed against the bill, warning it would enable people caught up in fits of rage or depression to obtain weapons quickly and kill people . . .just like they do in Indiana.

  15. Democrats from Milwaukee, which has seen 67 homicides so far this year, said the waiting period is the only piece of state gun laws that work. So they are going to abolish all the rest of the ridiculous gun laws?

  16. I paid off my pistol on Saturday, I had to wait until Monday to get it. It’s an annoying inconvenience. I’ll be happy when the 48-hour wait is gone.

  17. Doing away with the 48 hour waiting period means nothing if the result of the background check call is “we’ll call you back”. The state can still take 7 days to do that.


Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here