As I have been analyzing the veto of SB 59, it suddenly became clear to me just how close Gov. Snyder came to initiating a stealth de-facto carry ban in public places. Going forward, I will not support any legislation that mandates additional requirements such as those included in SB 59.
For those who are not familiar with SB 59, it was a bill that would have provided exemptions for CC by a CPL holder in a PFZ with additional training. It also would have done away with OC by a CPL holder in a PFZ entirely (a change demanded by Gov. Snyder, arguing that considerably fewer people in MI CC rather than OC - something to which he personally objects), something which is currently legal under Michigan law. The idea behind the bill was to increase carry in these areas; Gov. Snyder had other plans.
Gov. Snyder's stated reasons for vetoing SB 59 are that a) it made no provision for schools (in particular) to ban carry, and b) he personally objects to the idea of carrying in public in part because of guilt he still carries related to a 30 year old murder. But let's look at what the effect would have been if that language HAD been included:
1) Like it or not, open carry in a pistol free zone (PFZ) is currently legal with a CPL. Schools cannot prevent someone from carrying in that fashion. A teacher has the option to provide for their own defense - and that of their students - by carrying openly at this time if they so choose. SB 59 would have done away with that completely by banning OC in a PFZ and by encouraging schools to declare themselves off-limits to ALL carry.
2) While on the one hand SB 59 would seemingly give greater latitude to carry concealed, it also would have given "gunbuster" signs the explicit force of law (they are enforceable now under general trespass laws, this would have explicitly recognized these signs) and actually encouraged more schools and businesses to declare themselves to be PFZ's. Those of us in the carry community are already dealing with this difficulty - SB 59 actually had the potential to magnify that difficulty significantly (even without the inclusion of Gov. Snyder's desired verbiage).
3) By mandating nine more hours of classes - and the expenses associated with those classes - as a condition for applying for an exemption, we would have only incrementally increased the number of carriers who would have been eligible to carry in a PFZ; the additional cost alone would have been prohibitive for many.
The result? SB 59 would have had the effect of banning firearms carry in public simply by making it too difficult to carry. The bill that was being touted as increasing carry would have actually been a trojan horse - stealthily banning carry in public without explicitly outlawing it. Even without the language desired by Gov. Snyder SB 59 would have, as a practical consideration, restricted carry and given "gunbuster" signs the explicit force of law.
With the desired language, it would have been a masterful stroke of gun control legislation - and no one would have been able to blame the anti-carry community for doing it; pro-Second Amendment legislators would have made it possible.
This is why I have been warning legislators about the applicability of the 2012 federal appeals case Woollard v. Sheridan. Woollard states that it is unconstitutional to limit the enumerated right to carry simply by making that right more difficult to exercise - by piling on more and more requirements as a condition to exercise the right. As Judge Legg wrote in his opinion,
So two issues are at play here.
First, SB 59 would have added another level of difficulty to the exercise of firearms carry. Gov. Snyder's remarks following his veto of the bill make it clear that he personally sees no value in carrying in public places - especially schools ("'While we must vigilantly protect the rights of law- abiding firearm owners, we also must ensure the right of designated public entities to exercise their best discretion,' Snyder said in a statement. 'These public venues need clear legal authority to ban firearms'.”). He was out to make firearms carry as difficult as possible, and when he was unable to get ALL of the restrictive language he wanted included in the bill, he vetoed it. Woollard says that this approach is unconstitutional because it is not "'reasonably adapted' to a government interest..."
Second, SB 59 would have outlawed a method of carry that is currently legal, yet at no time has the government enunciated a substantial justification for either doing away with the right to openly carry in public or to limit the right to carry concealed, as SB 59 would have effectively done. Gov. Snyder saying that he finds no value in it or referring to a murder that occurred 30 years ago (Tim Skubick: Concealed weapons veto moves Gov. Snyder back toward the middle | MLive.com), committed by a man who had already violated several existing laws in order to facilitate that murder, does not meet the legal standard necessary to limit the exercise of this enumerated right. A reason that would have met that standard would have been the publication of objective data conclusively demonstrating that the public is in greater danger from those legally carrying in Michigan because carriers commit more crimes while doing so. As we know, those data do not exist. The numbers of carriers who are involved in illegal activity of ANY kind - let alone firearm-related illegal activity - in Michigan are statistically ZERO.
Going forward, we need to be even more vigilant than has been necessary in the past. Gov. Snyder tipped his hand and showed his true colors regarding the exercise of our Second Amendment rights - he is out to destroy them. We can also expect Mayor Bloomberg (who praised Snyder's decision, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-18/michigan-governor-snyder-vetoes-concealed-guns-in-school-measure.html) and his organization, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), to step up their activities in Michigan to sustain a level of panic and mistrust relating to legal carriers (they spent several hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last election). MAIG doesn't exist only to address the issue of illegally-owned and used firearms, they exist to do what the Brady Center has been unable to do - initiate full-scale gun control.
For those who are not familiar with SB 59, it was a bill that would have provided exemptions for CC by a CPL holder in a PFZ with additional training. It also would have done away with OC by a CPL holder in a PFZ entirely (a change demanded by Gov. Snyder, arguing that considerably fewer people in MI CC rather than OC - something to which he personally objects), something which is currently legal under Michigan law. The idea behind the bill was to increase carry in these areas; Gov. Snyder had other plans.
Gov. Snyder's stated reasons for vetoing SB 59 are that a) it made no provision for schools (in particular) to ban carry, and b) he personally objects to the idea of carrying in public in part because of guilt he still carries related to a 30 year old murder. But let's look at what the effect would have been if that language HAD been included:
1) Like it or not, open carry in a pistol free zone (PFZ) is currently legal with a CPL. Schools cannot prevent someone from carrying in that fashion. A teacher has the option to provide for their own defense - and that of their students - by carrying openly at this time if they so choose. SB 59 would have done away with that completely by banning OC in a PFZ and by encouraging schools to declare themselves off-limits to ALL carry.
2) While on the one hand SB 59 would seemingly give greater latitude to carry concealed, it also would have given "gunbuster" signs the explicit force of law (they are enforceable now under general trespass laws, this would have explicitly recognized these signs) and actually encouraged more schools and businesses to declare themselves to be PFZ's. Those of us in the carry community are already dealing with this difficulty - SB 59 actually had the potential to magnify that difficulty significantly (even without the inclusion of Gov. Snyder's desired verbiage).
3) By mandating nine more hours of classes - and the expenses associated with those classes - as a condition for applying for an exemption, we would have only incrementally increased the number of carriers who would have been eligible to carry in a PFZ; the additional cost alone would have been prohibitive for many.
The result? SB 59 would have had the effect of banning firearms carry in public simply by making it too difficult to carry. The bill that was being touted as increasing carry would have actually been a trojan horse - stealthily banning carry in public without explicitly outlawing it. Even without the language desired by Gov. Snyder SB 59 would have, as a practical consideration, restricted carry and given "gunbuster" signs the explicit force of law.
With the desired language, it would have been a masterful stroke of gun control legislation - and no one would have been able to blame the anti-carry community for doing it; pro-Second Amendment legislators would have made it possible.
This is why I have been warning legislators about the applicability of the 2012 federal appeals case Woollard v. Sheridan. Woollard states that it is unconstitutional to limit the enumerated right to carry simply by making that right more difficult to exercise - by piling on more and more requirements as a condition to exercise the right. As Judge Legg wrote in his opinion,
So two issues are at play here.
First, SB 59 would have added another level of difficulty to the exercise of firearms carry. Gov. Snyder's remarks following his veto of the bill make it clear that he personally sees no value in carrying in public places - especially schools ("'While we must vigilantly protect the rights of law- abiding firearm owners, we also must ensure the right of designated public entities to exercise their best discretion,' Snyder said in a statement. 'These public venues need clear legal authority to ban firearms'.”). He was out to make firearms carry as difficult as possible, and when he was unable to get ALL of the restrictive language he wanted included in the bill, he vetoed it. Woollard says that this approach is unconstitutional because it is not "'reasonably adapted' to a government interest..."
Second, SB 59 would have outlawed a method of carry that is currently legal, yet at no time has the government enunciated a substantial justification for either doing away with the right to openly carry in public or to limit the right to carry concealed, as SB 59 would have effectively done. Gov. Snyder saying that he finds no value in it or referring to a murder that occurred 30 years ago (Tim Skubick: Concealed weapons veto moves Gov. Snyder back toward the middle | MLive.com), committed by a man who had already violated several existing laws in order to facilitate that murder, does not meet the legal standard necessary to limit the exercise of this enumerated right. A reason that would have met that standard would have been the publication of objective data conclusively demonstrating that the public is in greater danger from those legally carrying in Michigan because carriers commit more crimes while doing so. As we know, those data do not exist. The numbers of carriers who are involved in illegal activity of ANY kind - let alone firearm-related illegal activity - in Michigan are statistically ZERO.
Going forward, we need to be even more vigilant than has been necessary in the past. Gov. Snyder tipped his hand and showed his true colors regarding the exercise of our Second Amendment rights - he is out to destroy them. We can also expect Mayor Bloomberg (who praised Snyder's decision, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-18/michigan-governor-snyder-vetoes-concealed-guns-in-school-measure.html) and his organization, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), to step up their activities in Michigan to sustain a level of panic and mistrust relating to legal carriers (they spent several hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last election). MAIG doesn't exist only to address the issue of illegally-owned and used firearms, they exist to do what the Brady Center has been unable to do - initiate full-scale gun control.
