In Virginia, I open carry all the time. In the summer its just too hot to conceal your sidearm with a coat or overshirt, and a plastic holster against your bare skin can be unbearable too. Open carry is pretty common and I've only ever been questioned about it once.

In Wisconsin, one of two states where concealed carry is strictly verboten, open carry is causing a panic. What's worse is that it is the police (who themselves carry openly) who are doing the panicking.

Police arrived up to investigate Krause while 12 News was interviewing him about his previous arrest for carrying a holstered gun on his hip outside his home. One officer saw Krause's gun and asked what agency he's affiliated with.

"I'm the same guy I was when you arrested me the last time," Krause said.

The officers asked for his name and called dispatch.

"The reason I'm checking is because felons can't have guns in Wisconsin," West Allis police said.

Krause is not a felon. He's a certified firearms instructor.

Just because you are carrying a sidearm, they assume you are up to no good.

"I'm totally opposed to it. I do not think we need more guns on the streets," state Rep. Leon Young said.

Young, a former Milwaukee police officer who represents part of Milwaukee's north side, said he's working on fast track legislation to clear up confusion with Wisconsin's gun law.

"If you're walking down the street with a gun in your hand and people can see it or you've got one in your holster here and people can see it, it's going to create a disturbance," Young said.

But until there's a new law, the officers explained to Krause, the attorney general's ruling is brand new to them and they'll act accordingly.

"How it was explained to us is that if somebody calls and makes a complaint -- in other words, they feel threatened -- they feel it's causing a disturbance or they feel that it's disorderly in some fashion. They call us and we respond and we investigate it," a West Allis police officer said.

The mere presence of a gun is considered a "disburbance". [emphasis mine]

The officers said in a different situation [without news cameras standing nearby] they would likely still order someone carrying a gun to the ground until they could make sure the situation is safe.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said his memo was simply intended to "clarify" the law, and he does not believe more people will start openly carrying guns because of it.

Gov. Jim Doyle hopes it won't change how police officers respond when they see weapons.

"Our advice was people are permitted [permitted? whatever happened to government of, by, and for the people?] to openly carry firearms -- that it wasn't in and of itself disorderly conduct. We intentionally didn't go into any factual-based scenarios because they're all different," Van Hollen said.

"I assume that local DAs and local police departments are gonna continue to act as they already have," Doyle said.

Police Response

Milwaukee's police chief said he'll go on telling his officers to take down anyone with a firearm despite Van Hollen's finding that people can carry guns openly if they do it peacefully.

Chief Ed Flynn said officers can't assume people are carrying guns legally in a city that has seen nearly 200 homicides in the past two years.

[can't assume people are following the law]

He said that means officers seeing anybody carrying a gun will put them on the ground, take the gun away and then decide if the person has a right to carry it. [violate civil rights now, ask questions later]

Flynn said it's irresponsible to send a message that if someone carries a weapon openly, no one can bother them.

Milwaukee-area police chiefs have a monthly meeting on Wednesday, and they're expected to discuss this issue.

Shorewood Police Chief David Banaszynski is the leader of the state chief's association.

He said many departments are asking questions about how to deal with people openly carrying firearms.

He said it may end up being a community-by-community, case-by-case issue fraught with the potential for danger.

"Now, with open carry, which is legal, there may be no training. I could hand you my handgun, you could walk down the street carrying it with no training whatsoever. To me, there is a lot more danger now with people thinking, 'I have the right to carry it so I'm going to carry it, and not have the training,'" Banaszynski said.

Wisconsin should simply pass a concealed carry statute and avoid the kerfuffle altogether.

Below the fold are some images from the Tea Party yesterday in Reston Virginia.

Would you like to know more? >

Remember when liberals and media were harping on President Bush's "record" budget deficits? Senator Kent Conrad, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee said, "I think this budget is breathtaking in its lack of fiscal responsibility. This president's plan is plunging us deep into deficit, deep into debt."

Democrats were screaming bloody murder about $300-400 Billion budget deficits. Now, the CBO predicts Obama's deficit to be $1845 Billion.

The Heritage Foundation notes that the deficits are likely here to stay for a long time.

In fairness to Senator Conrad who is now chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, he has pared down Obama's grandiose wishlist quite a bit. But Conrad's proposal will still far exceed Bush's $400 billion deficits of years past.

Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota said the Senate Budget Committee, which he chairs, will vote on his version Wednesday.

"We've made hundreds of billions of dollars of changes to make this work to get down to the deficit goal and at the same time maintain the president's priorities -- education and energy and health care," Conrad said as he left a closed meeting in the Capitol, where he briefed Senate Democratic colleagues on his plan.

Snubbing the auto industry and instead choosing to pimp environmentalism, Obama recycled a tired old cannard from the Sierra Club: that modern day cars are no better than the venerable old Model T.

Obama parrots:

"The 1908 Model T -- think about this -- the 1908 Model T earned better gas mileage than the typical SUV in 2008. Think about that -- a hundred years later and we're getting less gas mileage, not better, on SUVs. Even as our economy has been transformed by new forms of technology, our electric grid looks largely the same as it did half a century ago."

Of course, we debunked this argument way back in 2003.

Of course, there are also staggering differences between vehicles made in the early 1900s and the early 2000s so any one on one comparison would be extremely flawed.

For instance, a 1908 Model T weighed a mere 1200 pounds. Compare this to the 1993 Ford Festiva, that I used to own. It weighed 1700 pounds and got 44 miles to the gallon. The Model T boasted a 4 cylinder engine that made a whopping 20 horsepower. Most modern small cars get over 100 horsepower. The Model T also burned oil for the headlights and various other lamps that adorned the vehicle. It wasn't exactly eco-friendly. Compare this to the 2003 Ford Focus. The Focus weighs over 2600 lbs, and it's 4 cylinder engine makes 110 horsepower and gets 27 to 36 miles to the gallon. Of course, they also don't bother to take into account that today's vehicles are subjected to countless government mandated safety standards.

Modern cars are larger, faster, safer, and more powerful. They hold more people, more stuff, and only emit a fraction of the pollutants compared to that of older cars. Pound for pound, we are all much better off. Who cares if they burn a few more gallons of fuel.

The 2008 Ford Focus SES weighs in at 2588 lbs, makes 140 horsepower from its I-4 engine, and 24 to 35 miles per gallon. It also gets to 60 in less than 10 seconds. Lets see a Model T do that!

"So for everybody in Washington who's busy scrambling, trying to figure out how to blame somebody else, just go ahead and talk to me, because it's my job to make sure that we fix these messes, even if I don't make them." -- Barack Obama