Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on Wednesday signed two bills that expand gun rights in the state.
One measure will allow retired or out-of-state police officers to carry guns on school grounds, and the other repeals the state’s 48 hour waiting period for handgun purchases, which the Republican governor and likely presidential candidate said will bring the state into the 21st century.
“There’s a national instant criminal background check system that enables us to get instant information about whether someone is eligible to possess a handgun. The 48 hours was at time when you didn’t have that,” said Walker, who signed both bills in the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office.
“We find it particularly insulting that he would, just a week after the mass shooting in Charleston, come here to Milwaukee, which has been the epicenter of gun violence in Wisconsin, to sign this bill instead of doing those things that could actually prevent gun violence,” said Jeri Bonavia with WAVE, the Wisconsin Anti Violence Effort. “The most important thing we could be doing in Wisconsin is to pass a bill that would require background checks on all gun sales.”
“If we had pulled back on this, I think it would have given people the erroneous opinion that what we signed into law today had anything to do with what happened in Charleston,” Walker said, adding that the focus ought to be on the victims in Charleston and their families.
“I think it’s been largely universal across political lines and otherwise, a denouncement of not just the act that this man committed – I won’t repeat his name – to denounce not just the act but the beliefs that he had. This was a racist, evil man.”