Same thing seems to be the case in WI
http://www.wkowtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=10879014
Madison man walks downtown with gun in broad daylight, ticketed
Posted: Aug 10, 2009 1:09 PM
MADISON (WKOW) -- A UW-Madison graduate student says he will fight a ticket he received last weekend after walking through the downtown area carrying a gun in broad daylight.
Travis Yates asked us not to show his face, but agreed to show the gun that got him ticketed.
"It's just your typical run of the mill handgun that most people would want to buy for self defense," he said of the .9 semiautomatic weapon. "I always try to keep the shirt off of it so it doesn't conceal it."
It was like that on his right hip when he walked about a dozen blocks early Saturday evening from his home east of the Capitol to halfway down State Street. Yates said he never took it out of the holster, but someone called police.
An arriving officer handcuffed him, then took him back to his home and eventually cited him with disorderly conduct.
Yates called his protest proof that Wisconsin's ban against concealed carry creates a Catch-22.
"If I were concealing it in my backpack, nobody would have seen it, but then it's concealed," he said. "You're damned if you do, damned if you don't."
"We can't just theoretically have the right to defend ourselves," he added. "It has to be an actual right, people have to do it."
This walk through Wisconsin's gun laws comes three months after Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen issued an advisory to the state's district attorneys, asking them to consider circumstances before charging someone who openly carries with disorderly conduct. That memorandum was issued following an incident in West Allis in February in which a homeowner was charged after a neighbor saw him walking on his lawn with a gun in plain view.
Madison Police Captain Victor Wahl wrote in a internal newsletter this spring that police procedures likely won't change,
and that "the location of the incident, the behavior of the suspect and the reactions of the witnesses will all be relevant to this determination."
People downtown on Monday were mixed on how they would react.
"I'd still be concerned if it wasn't law enforcement because what happens if I accidentally bump into him," said Chris Dwight, who was visiting from Seattle. "What's the reaction going to be?"
UW-Whitewater sophomore Matt Seefeldt said it would depend on how the person was acting with the weapon. "If he was waving it around I would call, but if it was on his hip, I would still be worried, but I wouldn't freak out that much about it."
"It's not my fault that somebody gets scared by me exercising my rights," said Yates. "I don't know if they're honestly scared. I don't know if they honestly felt like something bad was going to happen."
Yates said he understands if someone calls his actions in, but would like dispatchers or police to ask more questions about why that person is openly carrying a gun before handcuffing and ticketing them with disorderly conduct. He said he spent months studying Wisconsin's gun laws before deciding to make his protest. In fact, he had a copy of them in his pocket to show the responding officer.
Madison city attorney Michael May declined comment on this case at this time.
Yates' court date is set for September. He faces a $429 fine.