Empower Wisconsin | Nov. 25,  2019

By M.D. Kittle

MADISON — In Wisconsin, the annual nine-day gun deer season for many families is tantamount to a religious rite.

Had Gov. Tony Evers and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes had their way, some gun ownership rights would have been sacrificed at the altar of liberal politics.

Beyond the latest gun-control campaign in which Evers and his fellow left-wingers in the Legislature sought universal background checks and gun confiscation “red flag” laws, Barnes is on record opposing the type of ammunition a lot of deer hunters use.

In late 2012,  Barnes, freshly elected to the state Assembly, joined Milwaukee Democratic state Reps. Fred Kessler and Evan Goyke in calling for gun-control legislation that would “ban certain types of bullets, such as hollow-point bullets.”

Hunting experts know hollow point bullets, which expand or “mushroom” upon hitting their target, are generally much more humane than their non-expanding counterparts. The bullets are known for quick kills, and have been allowed in deer harvesting even in countries that have banned them.

Lt. Gun Control and his fellow liberal lawmakers at the time also sought to ban semiautomatic rifles, used by many hunters. And they called for a measure that would require those seeking permits to carry concealed guns to undergo psychological evaluations.

Most recently Barnes, Evers and Democrats in the Legislature pushed for a red flag law that would give courts and law enforcement broader authority to take away firearms from individuals deemed to be a “threat.”

Evers, after ordering the Legislature into special session on the gun-restriction bills,  said he would consider a gun “buy-back” program — in other words government-led gun seizures.

Leaders of the GOP-controlled Assembly and Senate wouldn’t let Evers have his gun show, however. They gavelled in the special session and quickly gavelled out without taking up the measures.

Second Amendment rights in Wisconsin’s deer-filled woods and fields and beyond remain in tact — for now.