Shoot kids, not oxygen tanks

Legislative Republicans seem determined to keep the gun nuts happy this session by passing a concealed carry bill that lets you take a gun most anywhere in Wisconsin.

Last time it came around, the bill was amended so a person couldn't even take a concealed gun into day care centers, hospitals, and other places where you surely need one. Then Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed it anyway. Tarnation!

So far, the bill has cleared both Senate and Assembly committees this time without any amendments, rejecting proposals to keep guns out of day care centers, among other things. Almost the only exceptions the bill allows are for police stations, schools, and taverns. (You have to leave them in your car in the tavern parking lot, which could delay a shooting by a few minutes.) Pistol packing at hospitals, shopping malls, and churches will be OK.

Before the Republican majority on the State Senate Judiciary Committee voted to support the bill last week, State Sen. Carol Roessler, R-Oshkosh, said she plans to introduce an amendment on the Senate floor for the hospitals, who have been lobbying hard for their own exemption. Her rationale was that there are "oxygen tanks and other chemicals" that presumably need protection from stray bullets.

Apparently the patients, visitors and staff -- like those preschoolers, staff and parents at day care centers -- don't need protection. But oxygen tanks do.