Ken Burns Talks Trump.

cbs_ftn_berns_race_150823c-800x430

Ken Burns speaks to CBS (screen grab).

In an interview with the Daily Beast on a retrospective of his films, acclaimed documentarian Ken Burn spent the majority of his time discussing the candidacy of presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and what it says about America.

[…]

Discussing Burns’ film The Central Park Five — about five black teens who were wrongly convicted of assaulting a white woman in New York City — Burns recalled how Trump reacted at the time.

“He shamefully took out a full-page ad in all of the New York dailies asking for a restoration of the death penalty for two 14-year-old, two 15-year-old, and one 16-year-old innocent children,” Burns explained. “While New York State laws would not have permitted their execution, just the fact that there was a rush to judgment ought to be complete evidence of how temperamentally unsuited he is for the office he now seeks.”

Burns makes an excellent point here, in regard to Trump’s volatility. Trump is con man, always ready to twist in the wind, willing to change views in a heartbeat. All his viewpoints are on the repugnant side, which should be enough to scare people away, but it isn’t. Given that, people should seriously consider Trump’s eruptions into temper, and how that would translate in an office of high power.

“I find Donald Trump more of a super-predator. This idea that he can attack and attack and attack whole groups of people, and that we live in a media culture where that’s permitted to be tolerated—it’s the spectacle and not the truth of it,” he said. “An amoral internet permits a lie to travel around the world three times before the truth can get started, and we live in a place where lying is OK—where a lassitude develops where it doesn’t matter what the truth is—and that’s how it’s possible for someone like him to be advanced who is so clearly temperamentally unsuited and has no idea about governing.”

“The Republican Party has been extraordinarily successful at getting many groups of people to vote against their self-interest,” he continued. “Evangelicals are voting for Donald Trump. What part of Donald Trump reminds you of Jesus Christ? Trump lusts after his own daughter on national radio, talks about women’s bodies and breasts in such a disparaging way, and mocks them. How is this in any way Christian? When you make the ‘other’ the enemy, how is that Christian?”

Okay, that last question is silly. Christians are all about othering, it’s the lifeblood of their belief. If you don’t other, how you can get your self-righteous judgment on? (Yes, I know, #notallchristians.)

Full story here.

Catheter Cops.

Urinary catheter (Photo: drawdrawdraw, Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Urinary catheter (Photo: drawdrawdraw, Getty Images/iStockphoto)

South Dakota. I am so not surprised. SD cops aren’t exactly a nice bunch of people, and they have the bad habit of stopping anyone with a Rez license plate, or being suspiciously brown looking. In keeping with that, rather than looking to be good human beings, they’ve gone with a threat, one they are happy to carry out. Anyone who will be traveling in my part of the world, you might want to go around SD.

Police in South Dakota are collecting urine samples from uncooperative suspects through the use of force and catheters, a procedure the state’s top prosecutor says is legal but is criticized by others as unnecessarily invasive and a potential constitutional violation.

The practice isn’t new, according to attorneys, but it’s been brought to light in a recent case in Pierre. An attorney for a man charged with felony drug ingestion is asking a judge to throw out evidence from an involuntary urine sample, saying it violated his client’s constitutional rights.

[…]

“Sticking a needle in your arm is very intrusive – I can’t imagine anything more intrusive than this,” said Ryan Kolbeck, a Sioux Falls lawyer and president of the South Dakota Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

It’s unclear how widespread the practice of forced catheterization is in South Dakota. Attorney General Marty Jackley said in an interview that the practice is permitted with a signed court order under state law, and he cited several  cases that supported the legality of the practice.

The attorney general said law enforcement would prefer not to collect urine samples by force, but that ultimately it’s up to suspects if they don’t want to cooperate.

“I don’t think anyone wants to go through that methodology,” Jackley said.

Police always take the person to a hospital if they are going to take a forced urine sample, said Tim Whalen, a Lake Andes attorney who has represented a couple of clients who have had urine samples taken without permission. Health care workers at the Wagner and Platte hospitals conduct the procedure on a regular basis, he said.

“They don’t anesthetize them,” Whalen said. “There’s a lot of screaming and hollering.”

Christ. Yeah, nothing wrong with this at all. Nope.

Kolbeck said he doesn’t know what state law would allow authorities to use forced catheterization. It’s an extreme measure that shouldn’t be used in routine cases such as drunken driving or drug ingestion, he said. Most disturbing, he said, is the fact that it could be happening to women.

“They want someone’s urine that bad?,” Kolbeck said.

The Pierre Police Department declined to comment and deferred all questions to the Hughes County State’s Attorney office. Hughes County State’s Attorney Wendy Kloeppner declined to comment on the case or the practice of forced catheterization.

Pam Hein, a defense attorney in Lake Andes, said the practice of forcing catheters into suspects’ urethras “has been going on for years.”

Hein has seen the issue from both perspectives. She’s served as Charles Mix County State’s Attorney and Bennett County State’s Attorney.

Often an officer will have suspicion of drug use, request the warrant for testing and get the test before any reports on a drug violation charge lands on a prosecutor’s desk.

“Do I think that it’s being abused? Yeah, I do,” Hein said.

Usually it doesn’t come to force, though, Hein said. The threat alone is enough. Officers can hold defendants in a room, sometimes for hours, she said, and then tell them they can offer the urine test voluntarily or face a warrant that would allow the officer to take it by force.

“Most of the time, when they threaten them with catheterization, they said, ‘That’s OK, you can have it,’” Hein said.

I am officially out of words. Argus Leader has the full story.

McCrory: Dying on Bigotry Hill.

Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC) (nc.gov, Screengrab)

Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC) (nc.gov, Screengrab)

he North Carolina state legislature is poised to transfer $500,000 from the state’s disaster relief fund to aid in the legal defense of HB2, the heavily-criticized law restricting restroom access, WRAL-TV reported.

“The governor asked for it,” said state Senate Budget Chair Harry Brown (R).

The funding was provided as part of a “technical corrections” bill added to another measure, House Bill 805, on Thursday, following the passage of the $22.34 billion state budget.

This, in the wake of a public statement by The Charlotte Hornets, who are not in favour of HB 2, but it seems there is simply no length to which McCrory is not willing to go to defend his bigotry. What happens if there’s a flood? Those have been happening in the area. What if there’s a fire or other disaster? The people of NC can simply go screw themselves, it seems. Full story here.

Also, North Carolina lawmakers adjourned for the year on Friday night after leaving mostly intact a law restricting transgender bathroom access that has drawn condemnation and jeopardized the state’s efforts to host the NBA All-Star Game, officials said. Full story here.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver.

The NBA and the Charlotte Hornets announced Thursday night that they will not support the proposed fix by North Carolina lawmakers to House Bill 2, the controversial law that forces transgender people to use public restrooms (in government buildings) that do not correspond with their gender identity.

“We have been engaged in dialogue with numerous groups at the city and state levels, but we do not endorse the version of the bill that we understand is currently before the legislature,” the organizations stated in a press release. “We remain committed to our guiding principles of inclusion, mutual respect and equal protections for all. We continue to believe that constructive engagement with all sides is the right path forward.”

The legislation, forced through during an emergency session of the state’s Congress, was introduced, debated, and passed in a single day. Signed into law March 23, HB 2 has been widely criticized — with over 160 businesses threatening to boycott the state if the bill is not repealed.

North Carolina Republicans had hoped that a compromise bill would quell the backlash. The version of the bill obtained by Charlotte TV station WBTV allows transgender residents to use the public restroom that most closely corresponds with their gender identity as long as they are able to “prove” their gender. Trans people can do so, according to the bill, by furnishing a “certificate of sex reassignment,” one notarized by the physician who performed the surgery. Many transgender people, however, do not have or desire surgery.

In addition, the draft of the bill sent to legislators Wednesday clarified the penalties for using the opposite-sex facilities. “Language in the latest draft of the bill would make it a Class 2 misdemeanor — one level higher than the normal penalty for trespassing — to trespass in a multiple-occupancy bathroom or changing facility,” reports WBTV.

This goes on, as McCrory and his fellow bigots insist on finding some way to legislate open bigotry. What is the final cost of this going to be for the people of North Carolina?

Full story here.

Got Safety Pin?

Credit: Shutterstock.

Credit: Shutterstock.

It might seem that the world is full of only terrible news these days, but from post-Brexit U.K. comes a tiny point of light. People around the country are wearing safety pins to show solidarity with immigrants and take a stand against racism.

The road to Brexit, as the U.K. decision to leave the European Union is called, was marked by blatant anti-immigrant rhetoric. And since last week’s vote, in which the Leave side was ultimately victorious, there’s been a significant increase in hate crimes. According to the National Police Chief’s Council, reported hate crimes have jumped by 57 percent since the vote.

In response to the open environment of hatred, people across the U.K. are now wearing safety pins — and tweeting pictures of themselves wearing them — in an act of solidarity with immigrants. The viral campaign was started by an American woman living in the U.K., who told indy100 that as a white woman, she doesn’t often get the same hate as other immigrants.

SafetyPin

“I’m always having to remind people I’m an immigrant,” she said. “You know, I’m white and speak English as a first language so I get a pass. They say ‘oh you don’t count, you’re not the kind of person we’re talking about.’”

[…]

While the campaign was a bright spot of inclusive push-back online, it was unclear how it translated into real world action. The woman who started the safety pin idea, who goes by the handle @cheeahs on Twitter, said she hopes the safety pins will be a real-world signal to people who may feel threatened that there are allies around.

“It’s just a little signal that shows people facing hate crimes that they’re not alone and their right to be in the UK is supported,” she told indy100. The little signal has now taken off like wildfire.

[…]

While most reactions have been positive, others have pointed out online that simply wearing a safety pin might do little in actuality to fight racism and xenophobia, raising specters of “hashtag activism” — which critics argue allows people to feel they’ve done something, without actually doing anything tangible. Others, however, say that social media campaigns are a vital organizing tactic that can spark a real-world effect — which seems to be the approach adherents to #safetypin, including its originator, are hoping for. On its own, she tweeted, the safety pin means “jack shit,” and it needs to be accompanied by both a decision to both actively speak out against public acts of violence, racism, and xenophobia, and also a decision to actively listen to those who have been marginalized. … “The first step is just getting it out in the open. The more people you start a conversation with, the easier it is to combat violence and abuse,” she said.

Full Story at Think Progress. Got Safety Pin? I do, mine are now in my ears.

My Rights Are Being Nailed to the Cross!

Rick Tyler (Rick Tyler for President)

Rick Tyler (Rick Tyler for President)

Alternate title: Waaah! You meanypants are unfair! Remember Rick “Make America White Again” Tyler? He’s very upset that people are being so mean and unfair as to do things like boycott his restaurant, due to his bigotry.

A new billboard campaign explicitly rejects the Donald Trump-inspired message of a Tennessee statehouse candidate — who said he appreciates the attention.

Rick Tyler, an independent Congressional candidate for Tennessee’s 3rd District, is facing a boycott of his restaurant business after he advertised his candidacy with racist billboard messages saying, “Make America White Again.”

Other residents of Polk County were disappointed with the national attention Tyler’s message attracted, and they wanted to counter the racist slogan to show not everyone agreed with the candidate, reported the Times Free Press.

“I really wanted to avoid the perception that residents in this region feel that way or treat one another that way,” said Josiah Vacheresse, executive director for Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children. “That’s not what we’re about, that’s not what we’re for.”

So Vacheresse asked family, friends and online supporters to help him buy advertising space on billboards in the county, where drivers will see inspiring quotes from Nelson Mandela instead of a more racist interpretation of Trump’s campaign slogan.

[…]

Tyler, who also set up a billboard quoting Martin Luther King Jr. alongside a Confederate flag, said he didn’t mind if the second campaign rejected his message.

“I think it’s great what they’re doing,” Tyler said. “They’re stoking the fire of the story.”

Two of Tyler’s signs were taken down last week by the billboard rental companies, and the candidate said he was disappointed.

“I’m all about freedom,” said Tyler, whose campaign website contains lengthy “conspiracy science” posts about chemtrails and communist plots. “It’s great that they are able to say what they want to say. What’s tragic is that I’m not able to. I’m not allowed to. My First Amendment right is being nailed to the cross.”

No, that’s not tragic, Mr. Tyler, and no one has taken your rights away, which I’d think you’d notice, what with giving interviews and all. You can talk, and write, and try to find a way to put up even more repellent ads, and here’s the great thing – other people are free to respond to all that, and they have. Darn meanypantses.

Full Story Here.

Saint Reagan vs RNC.

FFRFRNCProof

Former President Ronald Reagan’s son and namesake Ron Reagan is literally the poster-person against religion. While the younger Reagan has been doing ads on news channels for the Freedom from Religion Foundation, it will be his father’s words that will hover over the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio in July.

“We establish no religion in this country… Church and state are, and must remain, separate,” the billboard will read.

[…]

“The RNC needs to be reminded that our nation is predicated on a godless and entirely secular Constitution,” she said. “The fate of our Establishment Clause hangs in the balance of the election. We’re not voting for the next president — we’re voting for the next Supreme Court justice.”

The local chapter director, Marni Huebner-Tiborsky, agreed that the message is an important one for Republican leaders to remember. “This billboard couldn’t be any more timely, and is definitely needed to remind our political leaders and the public that political campaigns should stick to a secular platform, where real change can happen,” she says.

Full Story Here. While I do think this might turn some heads, I doubt it will make a serious impact at this late date in the game. I also think the current crop of repubs is simply too far gone to consider this seriously, although it will hurt to see St. Ronnie going against their constant screed.

26.

Theodore Roosevelt. Whitehouse.gov.

Theodore Roosevelt. Whitehouse.gov.

When Theodore Roosevelt took office in 1901, he already had a long legacy of animosity toward American Indians.

Seventeen years earlier, Roosevelt, then a young widow, left New York in favor of the Dakotas, where he built a ranch, rode horses and wrote about life on the frontier. When he returned to the east, he famously asserted that “the most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the average Indian.”

“I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every 10 are,” Roosevelt said during a January 1886 speech in New York. “And I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”

[…]

Roosevelt’s seven and a half years in office were marked by his support of the Indian allotment system, the removal of Indians from their lands and the destruction of their culture. Although he earned a reputation as a conservationist—placing more than 230 million acres of land under public protection—Roosevelt systematically marginalized Indians, uprooting them from their homelands to create national parks and monuments, speaking publicly about his plans to assimilate them and using them as spectacles to build his political empire.

[Read more…]

A Gay Republican Is Still A Republican.

Jason Elliott.

Jason Elliott.

A conservative republican, gay or no, is still a conservative republican, with a lot of repugnant views. I’d so like to think that being queer would provide more insight, generate some compassion, but it doesn’t in such cases. Next January, Jason Elliott will become South Carolina’s first openly gay lawmaker, representing a portion of Greenville in the S.C. House that includes conservative Bob Jones University.

Elliott says voters in Greenville’s House District 22 know he is gay but his sexual orientation did not play a role in the race. […] “With my knowledge and understanding that people knew of my orientation, the election results tell me that — rightfully — we focused on issues that are relevant to the position for which I was running,” Elliott said. He is pro-life, and supports the 2nd Amendment, restructuring state government and school choice.

Right. No surprises there. What did leave me scratching my brain was this little bit:

“Unquestionably and undeniably, I am a Republican and proud to be one,” Elliott said. “I’m also proud of the fact that I’m a white male, 6 foot, 2 inches with too much gray hair for 45 — and also happen to be gay.”

Um, what is that? An advertisement? Because those are kind of odd things to be proud of, outside of being gay and out.

Via Greenville Online.

Sunday Facepalm

Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi.

Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi.

Well, the KKK is back at it with their little flier campaign. It’s a bit more involved than the last effort in Georgia.

Following the mass shooting at gay nightclub ‘Pulse’ in Orlando, Florida, the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi gave out anti-gay pamphlets to the homes in Gautier and Ocean Springs along the Gulf Coast.

[…]

In response to news reports of the incident, Brent Waller, who identifies as the Imperial Wizard of the United Dixie White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Realm of Mississippi, said it’s his right to distribute whatever material even if locals do not welcome them.

‘I got the same right under the First Amendment to pass out pamphlets and literature just the same as the newspaper does,’ Waller told the Hattiesburg American.

Waller defended his group’s anti-gay sentiments by saying that black people and Muslims are also their list.

‘[The pamphlets were] put out in a legal fashion, nobody’s being targeted,’ he said. ‘There’s some things about gays, but there’s also some things about blacks and we’re coming out with one on Muslims next week.’

Goodness, he sounds a wee bit defensive. I’ll admit to being quite amused at the politically correct disclaimer after the Boycott 101’s final paragraph:

“Don’t let the outside immoral crowds and their news media get your butt in a bind. We will never bow to homosexuality and bestiality or other unnatural sexual perversions that go against the laws of nature and GOD.”

It said: “This is a mass flier drive, no one is being targeted because of race, religion, national or sexual orientation.“

Emphasis mine. Not overly amused though, because while the Klan is not remotely the same powerful organization it used to be, given the rise of the far right everywhere, along with white nationalism, it doesn’t pay to completely discount such groups. There’s a great deal of ugly in the Boycott 101 flier, but even the Klan, it seems, has had to learn where to carefully draw a line.

And Waller said he and his group don’t want outsiders coming into his state “spreading their liberal agenda.”

“Our state is being bombarded by outside views,” he said. “They get on the news about the flag and gay rights agenda.”

But the straight white perspective is rarely told, even though the bulk of Mississippi residents are white, Waller said.

According to a U.S. Census report issued in July 2014, an estimated 62 percent of the state’s residents are white.

“We’re the Klan that’s been here since the Civil War,” Waller said. “We have long been the voice for the white right wing. People may not like our views, but we are entitled to them.

“We’re not out here hanging people no more, but we certainly have some viewpoints that some people don’t agree with, but we certainly have some who do. I don’t sugarcoat it. I’m not politically correct. We are the main group for the white man. We have been for 150 years.”

Waller said the UDWK will continue to push for the right to be heard.

“We’re really going to get the message out this summer,” he said. “As long as we’re not using any inflammatory or hate-type material in our fliers we’re OK.”

And contrary to popular belief, Waller said, he has nothing against gays as long as they don’t flaunt their lifestyle.

“If somebody wants to live a certain lifestyle, I’m cool with that,” he said. “But if they want to push their agenda on us … I had one of those gay churches contact me. I told them I’m going to pray for you. You don’t have to worry about us harming you, but I think what you are doing is wrong.”

It does appear, at least for now, that the Klan remains mostly de-fanged.

Via Hattiesburg American, and Gay Star News. Boycott 101 Flier.

The United States is not a Christian country anymore.

SAB

That’s according to 59 percent of white evangelical Protestants recently surveyed by the Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with the Brookings Institution. And that number has jumped 11 points in just four years, from 48 percent in 2012.

Evangelicals’ growing conviction that the U.S. is losing its Christian identity, and that the country now is headed in the wrong direction, comes as politicians debate immigration and cultural change during the 2016 election season.

[…]

While a strong majority of white evangelical Protestants agree that the U.S. has lost its Christian identity, Americans overall are split on the question — 41 percent say it was Christian and remains so, and 42 percent say it was in the past but is no longer. Relatively few (15 percent) say America never has been a Christian nation.

The white evangelical Protestant community feels its cultural dominance in America has been lost, said Henry Olsen, senior fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center, who attended the press conference.

It certainly doesn’t feel that way to me.

“Over the last four years a growing number are seeing that it’s lost irretrievably,” he said. “That has massive implications for our politics going down the road.”

Americans also are split on whether American culture and the country’s way of life have mostly changed for the better (49 percent) or worse (50 percent) since the 1950s.

And, the PRRI/Brookings report said, “no group of Americans is more nostalgic about the 1950s than white evangelical Protestants,” with 70 percent saying the country has changed for the worse. Americans also split politically on the question: 68 percent of Republicans agree things have gotten worse, while nearly the same share of Democrats (66 percent) say times are better.

Oh, that 1950s nostalgia, for an America that never was. Nothing screams racist white privilege quite like 1950s love.

But Americans agree the country is moving in the wrong direction — a belief that crosses the political divide and has inched up from 65 percent in 2011 to 72 percent. And most (57 percent) believe they should fight for their values, even if they are at odds with the law and changing culture.

That’s fairly obvious, with all the current hysteria over anti-bigotry legislation.

There’s more at RNS. The PRRI survey.

Brexit, Nexit, Frexit…

Marine Le Pen with Heinz-Christian Strache of Austria's far-right Freedom Party (AFP Photo/Vladimir Simicek)

Marine Le Pen with Heinz-Christian Strache of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (AFP Photo/Vladimir Simicek)

Brexit, Nexit, Frexit, Fuck it. The chain has begun, with far-right, racist leaders all over* cheering Brexit, and whipping up similar sentiments all over Europe. I’ll just give you one small quote, and you can go read the rest, I hate beginning the day with despair.

— And the leader of Germany’s right-wing populist AfD Frauke Petry said in a Facebook post the Brexit was a warning that “if the EU does not abandon its quasi-socialist experiment of every greater integration then the European people will follow the Brits and take back their sovereignty.”

Yeah! Can’t have that whole humans being compassionate and caring stuff going on, oh no.

*Including American racist moron, Trump.

Full Story Here.

Ownbey’s Final Solution.

Oklahoma state Rep. Pat Ownbey, R-Ardmore, in 2013. CREDIT: AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki.

Oklahoma state Rep. Pat Ownbey, R-Ardmore, in 2013. CREDIT: AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki.

An Oklahoma lawmaker personally propagated an article over the weekend calling for a “final solution” regarding “radical Islam,” arguing that the 1,400-year-old faith is not a religion and should not be protected under the first amendment of the Constitution.

On Sunday, Oklahoma State Rep. Pat Ownbey re-published an article to his Facebook page entitled “Radical Islam – The Final Solution.” The article was originally published on the personal blog of Paul R. Hollrah, an Oklahoman who touts himself as a “retired government relations executive,” but Ownbey appears to have copy-pasted the piece and reposted it in its entirety, citing Hollrah.

The author is seemingly unaware that the phrase “the final solution” was used by Adolph Hitler and Nazi leadership to describe the horrific genocide enacted against Jews by the Third Reich during World War II, also known as the Holocaust. Instead, the article Ownbey shared purports that in light of the recent massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando by an ISIS-affiliated shooter, Islam should no longer be categorized as a religion in the United States — or in any western nation.

I really find it difficult to believe that Ownbey is in any way unfamiliar with the phrase the final solution or its meaning. It’s just another alt-right move: “hey, it won’t be like that, we can do a final solution right, you betcha!”

“…if we in the west are to protect our children and grandchildren from the horrors of a worldwide Islamic caliphate, we must first dispense with the cruel fiction that Islam is just another religious denomination, subject to all of the legal protections afforded legitimate religious sects,” Hollrah argues. “Islam is not a religion, subject to First Amendment protections, as we in western cultures understand the term. Rather, it is a complete political, legal, economic, military, social, and cultural system with a religious component.”

Hollrah — who, like presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, appears to be opposed to Muslim immigration into the United States — goes on to blast Christian traditions such as the Catholic Church that take a welcoming approach to Islam, accusing them of being naive. He then defends Trump’s Muslim ban by citing the Communist Control Act of 1954 before insisting that the West “quarantine” all Muslims.

“And since the 95% of Muslims who are described as either ‘moderate’ or ‘un-radicalized’ appear unwilling to play an active role in keeping their radicalized brethren in check, we have no long term alternative but to quarantine them… prohibiting them from residing anywhere within the civilized nations of the Earth,” he writes.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Not even wrong. As for prohibiting them from residing anywhere within the civilized nations of the Earth, once again, we see an American asshole who thinks America runs the world. This point of view is so damn pervasive, and so very poisonous. How do we rid ourselves of this cumbersome and meddlesome belief?

The author of the article at Think Progress goes on to debunk all this ineffable, but dangerous twaddle. A good read.

The “Disarmed Citizen Compensation Act”

State Rep. Bob Gannon (R-Slinger) is proposing the “Disarmed Citizen Compensation Act” that would impose liabilities on businesses that ban guns.

State Rep. Bob Gannon (R-Slinger) is proposing the “Disarmed Citizen Compensation Act” that would impose liabilities on businesses that ban guns.

A state lawmaker wants businesses that ban guns to be held strictly liable for any gun-related injury that might occur in their premises, and to pay triple damages.

The “Disarmed Citizen Compensation Act” is the brainchild of Rep. Bob Gannon (R-Slinger).

“This bill will give the citizens of Wisconsin a better chance of defending themselves and their loved ones against this scourge of terrorist activity,” Gannon said in a news release.

[…]

Gannon’s bill would discourage businesses from posting signs stating that firearms and other weapons are prohibited on the premises. That option was part of Wisconsin’s concealed carry law. License holders who violate the restrictions can be subject to a fine of up to $1,000.

Wisconsin became the 49th state to allow concealed weapons in 2011 with the passage of Act 35. More than 300,000 people have since obtained permits.

To encourage businesses to allow concealed carry, the concealed carry law provided owners immunity from any liability that may from any gun incident on the premises.

But the law didn’t address liability in the opposite scenario — a business that posts a weapons ban and has a gun incident.

Under Gannon’s bill the liability would attach automatically. In other words, if someone — a concealed carry permit holder or otherwise — injured or killed someone with a gun inside a store that had a sign prohibiting weapons, the business would be on the hook for triple the damages to any victims.

Gannon, who is in the property and casualty insurance business, said he was not aware of any similar law in other states.

Anyone surprised at this step of punishing people who don’t want guns on their premises? I think uStates has become the living embodiment of The Peter Principle.

Full Story Here.