Scott Walker's miscalculation on concealed weapons issue

Milwaukee County Exec Scott Walker, the governor wannabe, writes on his campaign blog about the proposal to allow people to carry concealed weapons in Wisconsin.

He conveniently forgets the "concealed" part, and prefers to call it the Personal Protection Act.

Walker apparently thinks it's a great issue to run for governor on. He says:

Early in 2004, the opponent that Jim Doyle handpicked to run against me in our re-election actually ran TV ads with the barrel of a gun facing the screen to attack me for supporting a right to carry in this state. With your help, we carried 58% of the vote in a county that traditionally votes for Democrats, so that issue does not seem to decide elections against supporters of the right to carry.

First of all, Walker continues to misstate Gov. Doyle's involvement in David Riemer's campaign for county exec. Riemer told Doyle what he was doing the night before he told the Journal Sentinel. Doyle was more than a little surprised. He hardly "hand-picked" Riemer.

Riemer asked Walker repeatedly during last year's campaign for his position on concealed carry, since the majority of people in Milwaukee County -- including law enforcement officials and even Sheriff David Clarke -- oppose putting more guns on the streets.

Walker avoided answering as long as he could, then finally said he supported concealed carry -- but insisted it was not a county issue and should not be a factor in the county executive's race.

To hear him tell it now, you would think he campaigned on the issue. It's true that he was reelected, and that Riemer tried to make concealed carry an issue, but if the conclusion Walker draws is that people in Milwaukee don't care about the issue, he is dead wrong. And it will be an issue in a race for governor.

According to Walker, "only" 15% of the population of Minnesota has obtained permits to carry concealed weapons. In Wisconsin, with 5.4-million people, "only" 810,000 people would be able to carry guns to Summerfest, Mayfair mall, and the church of their choice.

Fortunately for Doyle, Walker and Mark Green both think the way to make Wisconsin safer is to put more guns on the street. Here's hoping that is a major plank in both of their platforms, because it's one that will backfire.