If you’re old enough to remember the seventies and early eighties, you remember the isolated stories of the Japanese soldiers who lived in the jungles of New Guinea and other parts of the South Pacific that our troops had bypassed, who’d gone into the wilderness awaiting word from their leadership that never came.  They never heard of HIroshima, the surrender, the complete collapse of their military, and finally the rebirth of Japan as a fairly pacific society and then industrial giant.

And they staggered out of the jungle, three and sometimes almost four decades later, wearing improvised and native clothes, their rifles long-rusted into uselessness, amazed that Japan had surrendered, their Emperor had renounced the war that “he” had (by proxy) sent them to fight, and that life – and fact – had gone merrily on without them.

Anti-gun zealots are the new Japanese-Soldiers-who-never-got-the-word.  Exhibit 47839203943823983290 – this fellow, “Capper”, from the perhaps-incongruously-named blog Cognitive Dissonance, about a dissonant decision at a gun show in Wisconsin:

It has been recently reported that Waukesha County, deep in Republican red, has expanded its ban on concealed carry to other county buildings besides the courthouse and the administration building.

What was not reported is that it is also possible that when a person or group rent one of their facilities, like the expo center or a park, they can ask that the facility be marked as do not carry and that the county will honor that request.

The only reason that I even bring this up is that I’ve heard that at least one group, renting the Waukesha County Expo Center, has availed themselves of this new rule.

It’s not so much a “new rule” as it is “part of Wisconsin’s carry permit law“: from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s fairly capable summary of the law, “You can’t carry concealed at law enforcement buildings, prisons, jails, secured units or secured mental health institutions, courthouses, courtrooms, beyond security checkpoints in airports, on school grounds and premises, in taverns if you’re drinking alcohol, at special events such as concerts or games where organizers don’t allow it, at colleges or universities where prohibited, in businesses or on private property where the owner prohibits or limits concealed weapons”.  In other words, a lot like Minnesota’s law (but apparently without the idiotic posting requirement).

I’m going to issue an O’Rourke alert here; “LIfe is full of ironies, for the stupid”.  Not to say that Mr. Capper is stupid – far from it – but generally if someone finds “irony” in the mundane, it means they haven’t looked far enough for the not-so-“ironic” explanation.

Ironically, if my information is correct, that group is none other than the Bob and Rocco Gun Show. My source indicated that it wasn’t Bob Pucci that wanted this, but the national franchise. They said that there’s been too many accidental shootings by people bringing in their concealed weapons and, either through clumsiness or ineptness, have had the gone accidentally go off shooting the vendors.

Sorta.  Like most such restrictions and such events, it was actually a matter of a lawyer at an insurance company waving a big financial surcharge at the franchiser, because of the elevated risk that it might happen.  It has much less to do with people “bringing in their concealed weapons” than it does to people bringing in weapons at all, because – remember this? – Wisconsin didn’t have a concealed carry law until November 1.

Doesn’t that make you feel better knowing that Scott Walker and the Republican Legislature has now made it possible for any fool to walk around armed without even taking an inadequate four hour training course?

And here we are with the Japanese Soldier bit again.  Perhaps “Capper” never heard – legal carry permittees nationwide, over the past thirty years, have proven themselves not only two orders of magnitude more law-abiding than the average citizen, but vastly more competent than them as well.

And one thing Mr. Capper definitely has in common with the Japanese soldier; the soldier never had any need to read Wisconsin law.  Mr. Capper needs to, but apparently hasn’t; the law requires a training course.  It’s not the specialized training course you have to take in Minnesota – but it’s training.  Although there has been no link shown between training classes and safety; carry permittees are equally safe and reliable in states that don’t require training as in those that do.

And they wonder why we are recalling them….

Back into the jungle, Capper.  Walker is going to be in office for another three years.  And even if he does get recalled, it won’t be over this; even hard-core Democrat states – see Oregon, Washington and Connecticut – have shall-issue laws that are in no danger of repeat.  Because they work.

Sayonara.