11/09/2011

Move to fix training requirement imposed in Wisconsin

The state AG apparently went beyond the law in mandating a certain length of training to get a concealed handgun permit.

Applicants to carry concealed weapons in Wisconsin will no longer have to complete four hours of training, after a Republican-controlled legislative committee voted Monday to do away with a requirement that had been assailed by the National Rifle Association as being too strict.

The rule mandating the successful completion of at least four hours of training had been put in place by Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's Department of Justice.

Van Hollen testified Monday in support of the rule, saying it was necessary since the Legislature had said only that training was required but didn't say how much. He said four hours was the industry standard and not having a minimum requirement would make it impossible for the DOJ to verify that applicants had completed any training.

He also said that given that more than 20,000 people have submitted applications to get permits already, the public has not found the requirement to be too onerous.

But Republicans who control the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules ignored Van Hollen's concerns and voted to suspend the rule effective immediately. The committee also removed a requirement that applicants have a signed statement from the instructor verifying that the course had been successfully completed.

"There's no reason why we have to micromanage how people obtain their concealed carry permit," said Sen. Glenn Grothman, R-West Bend. He said other states with no minimum training requirements haven't had any problems and "there's going to be no problem in the state of Wisconsin either."
Republican Assembly Majority Leader Scott Suder, a sponsor of the bill, spoke in support of suspending the training requirement, saying the Legislature's intent was to leave it up to applicants to determine how many hours of training they needed.

"I really, truly believe we have to trust that individual," Suder said. The DOJ did not have the authority to specify a minimum number of hours, he said.

From now on, the DOJ will be "very liberal in accepting applications unless we have reason to believe there has been fraud or dishonesty or some aspect of the law has been disregarded," Van Hollen said. . . .

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4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I see that there is no index entry for training in More Guns, Less Crime. Is training a field in any of your databases and are there any notable correlations with training?

My first gun permit required a state certified class of not less than eight hours plus a mandated course of fire. I went on to train for certification as an instructor, only to discover the NRA ponzi scheme selling dispensations from infringements of the Second Amendment.

I protested mention of such a private organization in state law and discovered what lives under the rock of "training".

11/10/2011 5:02 AM  
Blogger John Lott said...

Ugh? Well, whatever is in the index, there are very long discussions in the book on training. Both Chapters 9 and 10 have substantial discussions on training. Obviously chapter 10 has the most recent information, but Chapter 9 has the most detailed discussion. I have discussions on the impact that training has on the number of permits issued as well as their impact on crime rates. I hope that this helps.

11/11/2011 3:19 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Of course it helps, and thank you for the book and the reminder. I will review Chapters 9 and 10.

11/12/2011 5:28 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmm, lest I be thought deficient in my studies, not recalling the details of Chs. 9 and 10, I've moved on in my reading. Currently I have finished N. N. Taleb's Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Unlikely and am reading background and secondary material on it, like his essays at edge.org. NNT is a break from E. T. Jaynes' Probability Theory that I hope will be central to my reading for a very long time.

11/12/2011 5:35 AM  

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