Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers probably figured he needed to do something in the aftermath of the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison. A school shooting, particularly one so high-profile, needed a political response. Unfortunately for him, he’s a Democrat and the legislature has a GOP majority.
That means the gun control he’d love to push has about as much chance of passing as a law banning all dogs.
It’s just not going to happen.
That means he needed to try something that looks like he’s doing something without requiring him to actually have to sit down with opponents and figure out what can actually be done.
And President Joe Biden showed him the way.
Wisconsin’s Democratic governor on Tuesday created a new office dedicated to preventing gun violence, a month after a school shooting not far from the state Capitol and an idea that drew immediate opposition from Republicans who said it was misguided.
Gov. Tony Evers also called on the Republican-controlled Legislature to pass a series of gun control and public safety measures, saying reducing violence should be a “shared priority that transcends politics.”
The Legislature has already rejected numerous gun control measures put forward by Evers, including universal background checks for gun purchases. But Evers said the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School last month demonstrated the need for lawmakers to act.
“Reducing crime and violence should be an issue that receives earnest bipartisan support,” Evers said at a news conference surrounded by gun control advocates, Democratic lawmakers, and the mayor and police chief of Madison who responded to last month’s school shooting.
Republicans were not on board.
Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos blasted the proposal as “not well thought out” and said it amounts to “a whole bunch of touchy-feely bureaucrats that are going to go around wasting time, wasting money, and certainly not putting the effort where it’s deserved.”
“You know what the most effective violence prevention office is? The police,” Vos said at a news conference.
I mean, Vos isn’t wrong.
Of course, it’s not that simple. The police can’t be everywhere and people looking to cause harm to people tend not to do it when the police are around. Law enforcement can generally only catch people after the crime has occurred. This will have long-term benefits for violence prevention because they can’t do it again, but that’s not entirely what people are looking at for the here and now.
But it will have an impact.
The problem with Evers is that he’s creating this office that will do nothing at all, really. Officially, the office will work with local governments, law enforcement, and gun stores to reduce so-called gun violence. In reality, though, unless they work with these local officials to undermine the causes of violent crime at the source, this becomes exactly what I said it was, an office that will do nothing.
Let’s be clear here, we still don’t know how the killer got her guns in this shooting. Maybe Evers does, but the public doesn’t, which means we can’t evaluate anything at all about any proposals that might be made. Did every adult do everything right, or at least think they did, only for the girl to find a way around it? Did someone drop the ball entirely and effectively just hand an unstable teenage girl a firearm?
We honestly don’t know, which is kind of the problem.
However, Evers has been itching to infringe on people’s gun rights for some time now. This office is a stopgap for him to appease his anti-gun supporters in the short term. He’ll have a lot more later, I’m sure.
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