Give public access to gun data

In a recent meeting with the Journal Sentinel Editorial Board and reporters and editors, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett noted that shooting incidents in Milwaukee have been rising every year since the concealed carry law was passed in 2011.

Fellow columnist Christian Schneider wrote in the Journal Sentinel’s April 5 Crossroads section: “Yet nearly four years later, nearly 250,000 concealed carry licenses have been issued, and one would be hardpressed to notice any difference in the state,” at least in terms of Ernst-ulrich crime statistics for Franzen violent crimes and

murders. The public I have no reason to

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one has any idea how not allowed they relate to the concealed to know. carry law or its

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the mayor and Police Chief Edward Flynn have rightly criticized. No one can discern the relationship between concealed carry and the tragic spike in Milwaukee’s homicides this year or the low number of homicides last year. The public does not know, and is not allowed to know.

That’s because the law was written to deny public access to virtually any data regarding concealed carry permits. And that needs to change.

Here’s what the state Legislative Reference Bureau had to say on the new law in 2012:

The state Department of Justice “maintains a computerized listing of the names and application information of licensees but may not make any of the information available to the public except in the course of a relevant prosecution. A law enforcement officer may not request or be provided information concerning a specific licensee except for purposes such as confirming that a license is valid, and the law enforcement agency may not make any of the information public except as part of a court proceeding. By March 1 of each year, DOJ must submit a statistical report to the legislature and the governor regarding the number of licenses applied for, issued, denied, suspended, and revoked during the previous calendar year, along with reasons for the denials, suspensions, or revocations, and the part of the application process in which the reasons for denial were discovered.”

In a 2013 column, Bill Lueders of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council wrote that “more than 4,000 applicants were denied a Wisconsin concealed carry license and more than 400 had their licenses revoked or suspended in the program’s first 14 months, records show. These included dozens of felons, domestic abusers, illegal drug users and ‘fugitives from justice.’ Who were these lawbreakers? The state’s lips are sealed.”

This is not a column about concealed carry. I’m perfectly fine with concealed carry. Like Schneider, I don’t discern a bloodbath going on across Wisconsin since concealed carry went into effect. But there is an extremely disturbing rise in gun violence in some Milwaukee neighborhoods this year, and I think the public has a right to know if concealed carry has anything to do with that.

“While developing a data-driven police department, it is frustrating when state law expressly prohibits accessing and analyzing your own data,” Flynn said.

Milwaukee County Supervisor Deanna Alexander — hardly a flaming liberal — issued a news release last week in which she said “We do not want to create any situations for government to retain a potential harassment list of permit holders, but there’s got to be a way to allow reporting of key statistics that will help us confirm what is really going on here,” Alexander said, calling on state legislators to consider options for revising the data compilation law.

She’s right. The chief is right. The mayor is right. And the Journal Sentinel Editorial Board was right when it said in June of 2011 that a good concealed carry bill would provide “access for law enforcement to a database of permit holders. Those records should be subject to the state Open Records Law.”

State legislators need to fix the law to provide that assurance.