(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Democrats are attacking gun violence and rising suicide and homicide rates with a series of gun bills that would also bring back a 48-hour waiting period to buy a hand gun.
The announcement came at a Tuesday news conference that included several Democrat lawmakers and Attorney General Josh Kaul.
According to Rep. Shelia Stubbs, D-Madison, the legislation comes at an important time in the wake of the December Abundant Life Christian School shooting.
“By the end of this year, an average of 741 Wisconsinites will lose their lives to gun violence,” Stubbs said. “An additional 1,686 people will be injured by a gun. Sixty-nine of those fatalities will be children and teens.”
In Wisconsin the rate of gun deaths increased by 54%, from 2014 to 2023, 20% higher than the national average, according to Stubbs.
Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, announced a bill reinstating a mandatory 48-hour waiting period for hand guns purchases in Wisconsin.
The same 48-hour legislation had stood for nearly 40 years until former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Republicans repealed it, leading to an unprecedented rise in gun violence and suicides, according to Larson.
“Gun suicide deaths have increased by 52%, from 350 [deaths] in 2014 to 532 [deaths] in 2022,” Larson said. “Every suicide is preventable, and adding a waiting period, as we should, puts a barrier between someone making an irrational decision and an irreversible harm.”
Larson argued the waiting period could help prevent both suicides and homicides in the state, saying waiting period laws in states that already have them reduce gun homicides by 17%.
There are currently 13 other states with mandatory waiting periods, according to Larson.
Kaul advocated for ghost gun legislation, saying Wisconsin state law currently doesn’t provide a required background check process for them.
However, because ghost guns were recently designated as firearms by a Supreme Court decision, preventive measures can now be taken against them, according to Kaul.
“Ghost guns make it easy for people who perhaps have been convicted of a felony or who are not permitted to own a firearm to get their hands on one,” Kaul said. “By banning them or treating them like other firearms by making them go through the background check process, we could ensure that loophole is closed.”
Darryl Morin, president of Forward Latino and co-founder of the 80% Coalition for Gun Violence Prevention, pushed against the narrative that gun violence in Wisconsin is only predominant in racially diverse, metropolitan areas like Madison or Milwaukee.
“We had 830 gun deaths in Wisconsin [in 2022], and 529 were Wisconsinites who took their own lives with a firearm,” Morin said. “Fifthy-seven-percent of those [taking their own lives] were white males over the age of 34.”
Morin concluded that gun homicides and suicides are not city or minority issues, but “a state of Wisconsin issue.”
“This is a public health and safety crisis,” Stubbs said. “We should be ashamed right here in the state of Wisconsin. We should be embarrassed in the state of Wisconsin. There is absolutely solutions to this violence and concrete steps we can take to make our communities safer for all.”
Republican legislators did not immediately respond for comment at the time of publication.