By Police1 Staff
MILWAUKEE — Police Chief Ed Flynn believes that the state’s concealed carry law is contributing to the city’s violence.
According Fox 6 Now, Flynn said Monday he agrees that law-abiding citizens should be allowed to carry a concealed firearm, but because of a state statute criminals are able to legally obtain guns.
The statute defines a career criminal as somebody who’s been convicted of three misdemeanors or one felony within five years.
“In Milwaukee, the overwhelming majority of our arrested felons plead guilty to misdemeanors and get a plea bargain,” he said. “The problem is when they passed the law in Wisconsin they only said convicted felons can’t qualify for a gun permit.”
Flynn said this led to career criminals guarding drug dealers, which he calls “human holsters.”
“Every year since that law was passed in 2011, non-fatal shootings have gone up, gun-related homicides have gone up and the number of guns seized from the streets by our department has gone up,” he said.
Milwaukee Police Association President Mike Crivello said the police union disagrees.
“I have never had a conversation with you, chief, relative to you displaying that we are arresting an overwhelming amount of people, or even one person, who’s committed a crime while carrying a CCW [permit]” Crivello said.
Flynn said the law was “an irresponsible law passed by irresponsible legislators.”
"[The legislators] are more interested in ideological points and I’d sure as hell like some more community outrage about that because that’s what driving the violence in this city and too many public officials are silent on it,” Flynn said.
Fifty-two homicides have been committed so far in 2017, the same as all of 2016, Fox 6 Now reported. Non-fatal shootings are at 256 for 2017, passing the 253 non-fatal shootings committed in 2016.