Todd Allbaugh Is Here And John Diedrich Returns (Hour 1)

From the Civic Media Radio Network, moving Wisconsin forward one joke at a time.

This is As Goes Wisconsin with Kristen Brott.

I'm so it goes, I'm so it goes, I'm so it goes, I'm so it goes, oh it's going, no one

knows.

Hello, Wisconsin!

Now, filling in for the new mom, here's Jane Mattenair.

Good morning and welcome, welcome to As Goes Wisconsin, coming to you live from our studio

in beautiful downtown Warkashaw.

At a very full show today, lots of guests, Greg Bach with me in studio.

Calvin is on the board, Todd Alba from the wonderful Todd Alba show, hearing across the

network from noon to 2 p.m.

And like I said, we have many guests joining us coming up at 10 30 journal sentinel reporter

John Dietrich is going to be back with the next piece in their ongoing series about

guns in Wisconsin.

And some really interesting things that they discovered in a poll that was conducted.

So we will share that with you.

Joseph Pecky joining us next hour at 11.06 to talk about project 2025 and what that

could mean for the United States of America.

And then a German town parent, Melissa Garvis, will be joining us to talk about what is going

on with their school district, busy show, lots of stuff on the way.

Good morning, Todd Alba.

How are you?

How was your weekend?

Jane, Greg, Calvin, I am always happy to be with you, start my work week back to school

with the fantastic As Goes Wisconsin and all your listeners.

I was nice.

I was up in beautiful green based shadow area.

My dad and stepmom live in journals.

We could have had that side of the family holiday Christmas together.

So yeah, even got a little a dusting of snow overnight on Saturday.

So yeah, I made a little Christmasy.

So how about you guys?

It was great.

Yeah.

I have lunch.

My sister and I had lunch on Saturday.

I have, I don't know if I really want to go into this.

Okay.

My husband and I have a side door to our house.

There's a front door inside door.

And they took the side door out to replace it with a new door, the frame cracked.

And then it turned out that the new door was the wrong size.

So it is taken, that was a month and a half ago.

So our side door has been boarded up for a month and a half.

So we have to go out the front door for everything and then go around to the garage.

It's been lovely.

And in addition, when we got back, chapter two, we got back for vacation in at the

end of August and September, the dryer wasn't working.

My dryer is not working.

So I cannot get anyone to fix it.

I have tried to find the service guys to fix my dryer and it's a particular make.

It's a Bosch.

No one will fix them.

So now I have to take my laundry over to my sisters to dry my laundry every weekend.

I'm sorry.

These are stories of the planes.

These are stories of the planes.

This is my life right now.

I'm cooking with larga and we have coal now in the high and I have to make the two day

journey to my sister's house to try the clothing in a horse and a horse cart.

Yes.

And of course, I might go on the front door for it.

I truly am sorry because it's inconvenient.

It throws off your rhythm, your schedule, and it's just like, oh man, nothing seems

right.

You dryer except they can't get it out the side door because the side door is boarded

up until we get the new door.

It's just a side door.

It's stifling the economy.

I'm telling you.

You're not buying things because you don't have a side door.

This is messing my life up.

Thanks Joe Biden.

Big time.

Big time.

So anyway, that's my tale of what for this morning.

We're going to talk about what happened over the weekend with the UW System Board of Regents.

What I wanted to start out with something that jumped out at me on Twitter this morning

posted by Ben Wickler with the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

This is from the Secretary of State Sarah Godlowski writing Senate Majority Leader Devon

Lemme Hue December 14th, 2020, a falsified certificate of votes for the presidential

election was submitted.

The documents signed by 10 individuals, including Wisconsin Election Commissioner Robert

Spindell Jr. claiming to be duly elected and qualified Wisconsin Elector for Donald Trump.

On December 6th, my office notified that those 10 Republicans, including Spindell, acknowledge

their actions in the 2020 election with a certificate of votes were fraudulent and that

the Trump campaign intended to use it as an effort to overturn the results of the 2020

election.

Wisconsin deserves election commissioners that have the utmost respect for the law and

a strong moral compass based on his acknowledgement of his role in the scheme to overturn the

election.

I'm calling you to immediately remove Robert Spindell from the election commission.

I don't think that's likely at all.

How do you?

And you're probably going to side door fix before that happens, but that's the door comes

on time.

That's our college folks.

Yeah.

All right.

No, I mean, do I think that the Secretary of State Godlowski is correct?

Absolutely.

I think it'll happen.

Absolutely not.

It's just it's politics is where we are today and it's unfortunate, but I do think that

it's a good, it's prudent.

I think it's a good thing for Secretary of State Godlowski to have on record to say that

she asked for this because you never know what might come down the line and one thing that

we kind of gleaned out of this story for the Washington Post last week with all this

broke from Patrick Marley was that people like Andrew hit and whoops, others.

You want to talk to Dale Schultz.

Dale Schultz is calling.

Sure.

Put him on the air.

Say how to Dale.

Sorry about that.

One thing we learned from the Washington Post story is that former Republican party chairman

Andrew hit and others are now apparently cooperating with state investigations.

That leads me to believe that although it's not public, perhaps state attorney general

Josh Call is in fact conducting a criminal investigation, may bring charges.

I think this is a good piece to have on the record because in the future of Spendel gets

charged with a criminal offense, you know, go back and say, look, we've been calling

for this for weeks, months, whatever it is.

And I think it gives, you know, the right side of the law, another piece of ammunition.

Do I think this one letter will change?

Let me use mine.

No.

Well, and also because I mean, let me view a pointed Spendel in 2021 again to the commission

after after all of us shenanigans had gone on in the first place.

Yeah.

They're part of it.

I mean, in terms of knowing, I mean, none of these people are innocent of knowledge, right?

They knew what was going on.

And I think that's another thing that came out of the Washington Post reporting.

All these different text messages.

They, even the people that conducted this stuff on January 6th, even people, these fake

electors who signed this stuff.

It was revealed either in text messages and deposition or in the January 6th bipartisan

commission in Washington, DC that these people had a sense they were doing something wrong.

I think the woman that delivered the actual ballots text to paraphrasing now, but something

like, you know, I feel like a drug dealer.

Well, you don't, you don't tell someone that you know or work with.

I feel like a drug dealer over what I'm doing.

If you don't feel that it's the wrong thing to do, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and I just have to wonder for these 10 fake electors, did they just go to bed at

night and sleep soundly thinking this was never going to, you know, this was never going

to come to the light of day.

They were never going to get found out.

It's all going to be everything's going to be just fine.

I don't think they care.

I think at the end of the day when they go to bed at night, they think ultimately what

they did was for the better of the country.

And because those people didn't listen, that's not my problem.

I tried to help.

I tried to be the one who saved this, this democracy.

That's probably what they're going to be thinking.

Yeah.

You're probably right.

I think as Todd Alba is our guest for this first hour, as he is every Monday while Kristin

is on maternity leave, you can hear his show, the Todd Alba show from noon to two across

the civic media radio network Greg Bach with me in studio, Calvin on the board and we're

going to switch things over to the UW board of Regents on Friday, voting nine to eight

against this deal between the assembly essentially or Robin Fawz and the university system.

Where did that take you by surprise?

How much time do you have?

We got, we got time to get two minutes.

Yes.

I guess nothing surprises me anymore, but it was unexpected and the reason it was unexpected

is because rarely do the board of Regents not take unanimous vote because a lot of people

don't know is this has been happening for years that the staff of the president in the

president's office for UW system, they call around and they make sure they don't violate

any open records laws and they basically ask all the board of Regents, how are you going

to vote?

And so by the time you get there, everything is cut and dried and everybody is going to

happen.

No surprises.

And so you would have thought in something so high profile that this would have been

cut and dried.

And I think the biggest thing, I don't know why I was unexpected or even a surprise, is

that the ineptitude of president J. Rothman of the UW system and his staff, because they

clearly, the great capital times reporter I for a hitter name asked this question on

Friday and said, were there any people of color at the table?

And he took about 30 seconds, Rothman did to say no.

And he danced around it.

And remember, you know, any time a politician says anything other than yes, it's no, anything

other than no is a yes.

And he clearly said no.

And so when you don't have anybody of color, of diversity at the table discussing diversity,

equity and inclusion, and you don't include people of diversity at the table, what do

you expect?

And so I think that there were coalition groups that were surprised by this.

They lobbied people on the board of Regents.

The Regents then, I don't know if they were even ever on quote-unquote on board.

We're going to vote yes.

If there's a last minute change, that's what some people say.

There was a great video of Channel 3000, President Rothman slamming his hand on the table

when the vote occurred and Regent Kathy Walch putting her face in her hands.

This is what we used to call a political parlance, a T F D. I'll be careful, a total freaking

disaster.

And I'll simply add this, the one thing I'm, I'm all kinds of notes, I'll let somebody

else talk.

I think we have to be very careful here, that Democrats are not hold harmless here in

my opinion and liberals, because I've been talking about this system, UW system for

over a year.

They attacked rural education and their Democrats and progressives other than KELOLAND Royce

largely said nothing, Tony Evers said nothing.

They closed the Richland campus, they closed the Washington campus, they closed the Fond

Black campus.

Over two and a half weeks ago, Rothman came out and said he wanted to take things away

from the poor folks in Wisconsin and largely Democrats and progressive have stayed silent.

The education governor has said virtually nothing and it took this issue for people to

finally step up and say something and I'm a little salty about that.

I agree with what they're saying about diversity, equity, inclusion that we should, that

is important.

But why did it take this issue, a very personal issue for some people to step up and finally

start defending higher education in Wisconsin?

I like salty Todd.

Me too.

I think we should.

I have more.

You know, more doses of salty Todd.

Salty Todd and, and, uh, Calviente, Calviente.

All right.

When we come back, what was in this deal that I particularly think was a good thing for

the popcorn king.

You're listening to Asgos Wisconsin on the Civic Media Spredio Network.

Good morning, welcome to Asgos Wisconsin, Jane McNair, in Fort Kristen Brie.

Rick Bach with me in studio, Todd, all about joining us on the stream, Calvin is on the

board.

You can always join us at 844-967-2789-844-966.

Party.

Something about the kind of surprise over the weekend involving the University Board

of Regents, rejecting a deal offered by Assembly Speaker, essentially Robin Voss, to finally

pay these, what, 35,000 people whose raises were approved, and they've been sitting on

this money and refusing to pay out this money because of diversity, inclusion, equity,

and inclusion programs.

So, the Regents, uh, by a vote of 9-8 rejected that on Saturday, one thing Todd that really

jumped out at me with this original deal because the news broke about that after our show

was over on Friday, and I know you spent quite a time talking about it in the first part

of your show on Friday, but the deal includes some sweet things for Robin Voss, it seems

to me.

As far as a whole big pile of money going to, white water.

It's very interesting.

In fact, it's $78.5 million for a renovation of two buildings on the white water campus.

I did look them up, they are not the best I can see, they are not dormitories or student

housing, they are basically old-class or administrative buildings, that sort of thing.

I said on Friday, look, I haven't been to those buildings at white water, I don't know.

Maybe they legit need fixing, and if they do, I got no problem with it.

What I have a problem with is, again, Robin Voss, Republicans, looked people in Richland

County, Washington County, and fond of lack in the eye, and said, we can't come up with

two to three million dollars to save your two-year campus.

Quote, there is no money.

That from Howard Marklin that joined Chairman of the Joint Finance Committee.

However, they found $78.5 million for these two buildings in white water, and they didn't

give other universities, apparently.

The opportunity to say, well, maybe we have needs of $40 million or $20 million.

Are these buildings in white water really the most needy of this time, and also, Jane,

I think you have a little clue here for folks, maybe why Robin Voss wanted those buildings

in white water?

Well, because Robin Voss owns 23 properties in white water that he'd rents out to college

kids.

What?

I know.

I was taken aback myself as a matter of fact, there was an article from 2020 in the Milwaukee

Journal Sentinel talking about Robin Voss as a landlord in white water, and it's estimated

and this is from 2020 again, his company owns 23 properties worth almost $4 million

in white water.

That's a nice chunk of change.

That's a nice chunk of change.

It's nice if you can find it.

Yeah, it's nice if you can find it, but that seems that raises my eyebrows.

Yeah.

That all of the universities that $78 million has to go to white water because we want to

make sure that students are still attending school in white water so I can rent to them.

And I'm sure he is a fastidious, gracious and fantastic landlord, just up to the code,

up to speed.

Nothing gets by old Rob's face.

He's getting those repairs done and he's keeping people living in comfort, right, Jane?

That's what I thought.

Thanks for listening, everybody.

It's interesting in this article again, this is from 2020 in the Journal Sentinel online.

He talked to previous renters and that not not everybody complained, you know, it's

like this.

Hey, it's college housing.

We're a bunch of kids.

I don't expect it to be the Taj Mahal.

But there was one young woman and her five roommates who said there were mold problems.

There were electrical problems.

And after a certain amount of time, they couldn't.

It never got fixed.

Yeah.

And so that was just his marriage.

Oh, the rise of salty Todd.

But so the Ross Voss's company sued them when they moved out, said they broke their

lease.

She countersued as that suit, as that counter suit was working its way through the system.

Mr. Voss and other fellow Republicans who are landlords in the Wisconsin legislature

were ushering through new rules for landlords to cap the amount that they would have to pay

in damages.

What?

Huh, this is, huh, I don't fake.

Yeah.

I know shocking shocking.

No, I sadly was working in the building when some of these quote-unquote landlord tenant

revisions happened and they were about 95% in favor of landlords at the time.

No.

And it was, yeah, I know a shocking, I know.

And so yeah, look, I don't, again, I've never been to these properties.

I don't know.

I don't want to put something out there that's, you know, clearly not accurate or true.

But to me, it certainly does not pass the smell test.

And it just doesn't look good.

And I think what was interesting parts of President Jay Rothman's press conference on Friday

is when, and again, it shows that he's an attorney, not a politician or somebody who worked

in higher administration.

He said, quote, that's something that speaker

of law specifically asked for, I mean, he kind of let the cat out of the bag.

I mean, you just don't say that.

I mean, you don't, you don't let that out, you know, that this is something that boss

specifically asked for negotiations.

So I mean, I, I, this is another nail and Jay Rothman's coffin, political coffin, because

you just don't say stuff like that.

I mean, does Jay Rothman even want the job then?

You got to ask yourself, he's not put himself in a position that makes it seem like he

really wants the job anymore.

It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.

And I also think that this specific ask by Robin Voss, to me, is an indication that he's

planning on leaving office, and he needs to have a little nest egg setup to make sure

he's taken care of after he's after he's out of office.

I'm happy.

You know, there are certainly I'll clarify that clarify but make sure they're rumors.

I don't know this for fact, but there is a line of thinking right now in the Republican,

in the Republican circles that Voss may not finish out his current term, and it's seriously

if it if he does, would not run for election in 2024 if he, oh, why not finish out his

term?

They, they behave, he's got landlord, he's, he's, he's making millions of dollars of

holiday in a white water and he's got his popcorn business.

Who needs 55 or 60,000 whatever it is for all this?

Do you know why to spend more time with his family?

That's always the reason isn't it?

No, I spend more time with my family.

Yeah, I think he wants to get, I think he wants to get out before there are any changes

to the maps and he might actually have a chance of losing and actually have to respond

to the needs of his constituents instead of his donors.

I think that and I do think he will, if he does, I mean, that makes sense too.

If he steps down, he doesn't have the shame of being primaryed out.

Right.

I mean, that's just, it would be, it would be embarrassing.

All right.

Let us, the news is coming up next.

When we come back, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter John Dietrich is going to be joining

us for part two in a series.

The paper has done on gun ownership in Wisconsin, fascinating articles.

Stay with us.

You're listening to as goes Wisconsin across the civic media radio network.

Good morning and welcome to as goes Wisconsin, Jane McNair, and for Kristen, Brian, Kristen

will be back with us on Wednesday at this time from 1032 11, so make sure you join us.

Then very happy to have you long, Greg Bach with me in studio, Todd Alba on the stream,

Calvin on the board and joining us for the second time to talk about this series that

is running in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Journal Sentinel investigative reporter John Dietrich is here to talk about your newest piece

on guns in Wisconsin.

Good morning, John.

Thanks so much for taking time.

I know you have a big, you have a big trip coming up tomorrow.

That's right.

That's right.

Thanks, Jane.

Really appreciate being back here, but yeah, I'm out off to Spain tomorrow.

Our son is graduating from college and he's done a schooling over in Madrid, so we're

over.

Congratulations.

Yeah.

Cool.

That is pretty cool.

So this latest series, this latest piece in the series about guns, pull of gun owners

in Wisconsin shows more are getting guns for self-defense and three in five of them

keep them locked.

Now this was a poll that was done in conjunction with Marquette, correct?

Yeah.

That's right.

So this is, so I did this project through the O'Brien Fellowship and public service journalism.

And that allows us, you know, for like a whole year to work for Marquette, work with students

and also to make connections on campus.

One of those connections with Charles Franklin, who does most well on pollster, I would

guess really in the state of Wisconsin through their law school.

And he helped me formulate this poll.

Charles always asks some gun questions.

You guys will be familiar on his poll that he does with registered voters as he's sort

of getting, you know, people's what they might, which way they will vote and so forth.

What this, the idea here was just to get a poll that was just to gun owners.

And so that's all we, that's all we went for, that's our whole, and that's a group.

I should say that's a subject that is difficult to pull on gun ownership and people's income

is two things that Charles said is like that's a big tap out line for him in his polling.

So to get just gun owners and people who own guns to talk, and you know, we don't really

know exactly why that is, but that's just one of those facts in polling.

So we try to lean into that and try to come up with some wording.

Maybe the wording is part of what it is.

So we were really thoughtful about trying to come up with wording the way we structured

it.

And it's, so it's that, you know, Charles and talking to others, this is the largest,

most in-depth poll of gun owners in Wisconsin to date.

Yeah, 345, right?

Yep, right, right, right there, yep, right there.

So what, and the reason why I'm so happy that you're doing this, John, is because I am

not from a gun owning family.

We were not a hunting family.

We didn't, you know, target practice.

It just wasn't part of, part of my childhood.

And even to this day, I don't know that that many I have some in my family who are hunters.

But it, it helps me understand people better because I don't always, I don't always understand

where gun owners are coming from and what I think is so valuable about your series is

that it gives some insight into that.

So was there anything that you found in this poll that really jumped out at you as a surprise?

Well, I mean, I think I was just actually being asked that because just before your podcast,

I was just on a different podcast from somebody who writes for an audience specifically of gun

owners.

So he's a second amendment, strong second amendment supporter and so forth.

And it's interesting that community is interested to talk to us as well, had a similar question.

I think one of the things that was, I have to just gauge this in that some of the expectation

of what I thought I knew is populated by social media.

Interesting.

Okay.

And more and more, I'm like, is that actually true?

Or am I getting, you know, like dispatches from the edges and from flattened people that

are not really allowed to like see sort of the whole, you know, the whole, what might

feel like inconsistencies or contradictions, but they're just people, right?

So the, and that's what we're trying to do in this project is like behind the gun is

seeing people's humanity first and they happen to all own this object, but they have different,

you know, different views and practices, a couple of things.

So I say that with some of my expectations or what I thought I knew was, was maybe colored

by, you know, my social media and things, drips and drabs like that.

And I do know gun owners.

I don't own a gun right now.

I did grow up in a house, well, sort of part time in a household where there was one,

but anyway, had experiences with it.

And so I guess what was surprising a little bit to me and might be surprising to people

is that our largest category of people who own guns, well, handguns are the most popular

fire armor.

So I didn't knew that AR-15s are the least.

So hunting rifle shotguns, AR-15s.

And Wisconsin has, according to another poll, the lowest percentage of AR-15 ownership

in the country.

Really?

Yes.

So right about 17 to 19% of gun owners in our poll, and that matches a national poll

that was done by Georgetown.

What we don't know is, like, what's the next question?

Why?

The handguns make sense because handguns are, like, they're just multiple use.

They also fall into the self-defense category.

They also populate the shooting sport category.

They're not so much hunting.

That would be the traditional hunting rifle or the shotgun.

The reason why AR-15 ownership may be less is because of our hunting culture.

And there certainly are people who hunt with AR-15s, and you talk about the mechanisms

and how traditional hunting rifle and AR-15 mechanically, there's a lot of similarities

there.

But there's also a cultural thing that I'm gathering about using an AR-15 or something

like that, especially the multiple rounds to hunt.

That can lead to, how do you put this, a culture of derision in certain deer camps.

So it's gun-shaming, essentially.

It's gun-shaming.

Among gun owners, yeah.

I mean, that's the thing is, all my friends who have guns who live here, their attitude

towards the AR-15 is like, I don't need that.

No one needs that.

That's a stupid weapon.

So it's almost like, it honestly doesn't surprise me.

I know a lot of people own guns.

It doesn't surprise me that the percentage is so low because it's just seen as like,

I'm a handgun for self-defense, I'm a rifle for hunting.

That gun is unnecessary to me or anyone.

There's no reason to have it, just that made sense when I heard the number.

Todd, I saw you have a look of recognition too when we were talking about this.

I can't imagine that most self-respecting hunters would endorse the use of that weapon

in that instance, because it's, isn't it overkill?

Yeah, John, thanks so much for coming on the program.

By the way, I grew up in Southwest Wisconsin and town of 5,000 people.

My grandparents were dairy farmers.

So I was in the woods from almost the time I could walk with daughter's safety in 11

and I started deer hunting at 12 and did so well into my early 40s when CWD became prominent.

That's why I kind of quit hunting deer was because of that.

I still occasionally go turkey and bird hunting, but you know, I don't know.

I mean, you would have brought an AR-15 into our family deer camp when my grandab was alive.

He would have told you to go home and to some choice words and then it's just unseemly.

It's like, if you're that bad of a shot, I don't want you around me, basically.

Seriously.

But John, one of the things I, a great reporting, by the way, in this story,

in Milwaukee, General Sentinel, one of the things that I found interesting,

I did not know was your report that 71 of 100 gun deaths in Wisconsin are suicide

and that rural areas are affected the most.

I found that both fascinating and tragic as someone who grew up in a rural area in Wisconsin.

Does that tie into what I know that that Jane and Greg have talked to Pam Yankee

from Midwest Farm Report on Civic Media about this?

This mental health crisis we see in rural Wisconsin egg communities.

Does that tie in with these findings?

Yeah, it does.

So one of the questions that we asked and thank you for that.

One of the questions that we asked was if you had, if you knew somebody

who had gone through a crisis, a suicidal thoughts type crisis,

who was a fellow gun owner, we asked the question in a way that we felt was

more invitational because if you ask the question directly,

it can be, it can be off-putting might be not even the right word.

But what we found is more than 25% of the gun owners that we talked to

said that that was something that they had done, that they were aware of.

And also that same number had held firearms for a friend, a loved one, and so forth in those time.

What happens is, and this isn't red flagged or any of that sort of stuff,

no government involvement, this is a practice among gun owners that's been going on

sort of under the detection of researchers for a long time.

Researchers who coincidentally are not gun owners, so it sort of makes sense they wouldn't know

about it. But when they started to do some of this work among gun owners,

they started to learn about this.

So depending on how you think, well, it's like, well, that's not a huge number,

but it is a big number because you're talking about suicide.

So that's a huge outcome that these thoughts have come.

And what I appreciate is that what we're trying to do is not

throughout this series is have like a gotcha thing.

And I mean, I get what you're saying about the AR-15 because it is for some people kind of like,

but I do, I interview people who do use the AR-15 for hunting.

But it's not like an extended magazine and they're like, it's not that.

It's a single shot and the upper receiver is the same as the traditional hunting rifle.

There are differences, but what we're trying to do in each one of these categories is be

invetational and not like fingerwag.

Right. So much.

And as I do that, I'm not fingerwagging my colleagues to be clear on that.

I'm not trying to shame other journalists because I've been doing this for 20 years of the

journal Sentinel. I've written stories that I think people would look back and I even look

back and I'm like, that's kind of like way I get a finger at people.

You know what I mean?

Well, Jay, one quick question is okay.

Yeah, go ahead.

One quick question. So my sister is a better shot.

She won a gold medal, international gold medal in shooting back when in the Daisy

BB gun days. She's a 10 times better shot.

Once we went to shoot in our 30-06s to go deer hunting and this older guy is,

he looks like, oh, this little girl's going to, you know, try to,

and my sister shoots, he looks in his scope and he goes,

Blake, Blake, Blake, she got a bullseye.

I mean, she could, he couldn't believe this, you know,

young female is, you know, a great shot.

She is.

But the point is in the story, you write that women in your survey,

you're reporting that women are, are, is it overkill?

Or is it too much to say they're more thoughtful gun owners?

They use locksmore, they take more care.

And also that this is that women, more women are owning guns in Wisconsin.

I found that interesting, but based on my sister's experience, not surprising.

That's, that is true.

And what we're seeing, because we also engaged ownership since the pandemic, March of 2020.

So we see those categories, you know, coming up anecdotally from in, in training sessions,

in classes, they're telling me more women are showing up.

And there's some markers, you know, again, we would say maybe not use the term,

like, more responsible, because we're trying to get more descriptive than using catch phrases.

I mean, I'm not, you know, I'm just saying like that.

That's what we tried to do, but the markers are on like storage.

Separation of lethal means, you know, these sorts of things.

We're seeing some differences, you know, among, among women.

We also overrepresented in our survey, probably for women.

You know, we're right about at 50 percent.

Female ownership of firearms in, in Wisconsin is probably more around 40 percent.

But it does seem to be going up.

We're seeing other categories, and we featured, you know,

we featured William Olivier in our series,

who's African American guy, Christine Joyce Brown,

who's LGBTQ plus, Emily Schmookey, who's, who's a woman from Waukeshaw,

and Christine is a transgender woman.

And so there are different categories, new voices.

And that's where I just sort of like to, there isn't like one community of gun owners.

There is a lot of different people that own this object,

who have different thoughts and practices, voting patterns,

you know, you know, beliefs and, and reasons that, you know, that they own firearms.

We will be back. Stay with us.

John Dietrich is an investigative reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,

and we're talking about the latest in a series on guns in Wisconsin.

Some really, really interesting details you find out.

You found, you have found out rather in the course of reporting this.

Stay with us. You're listening to As Goes Wisconsin

across the Civic Media Radio Network.

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Okay.

One, two, three.

My baby don't mess around me because she loves me so.

And if I know what's show.

Good morning and welcome to As Goes Wisconsin.

Jane McNair in for Kristen Bryant.

Calvin is on the board, Todd Alba on the stream.

Greg Bach with me in studio.

And we are joined also by Journal Sentinel investigative reporter.

Don Dietrich out with a new new story in their series on gun ownership in Wisconsin.

And John, one of the things that Todd had alluded to was the growing number of women

who are buying firearms and also tend to handle them a little bit more safely with gun locks

and safes and things like that.

Yeah. So when we looked at the different categories

of how people keep guns at home, that's a big, that's a big one that's talked about a lot,

especially depending on who's in the house.

And we've had these very incredibly tragic incidents.

It's not super common. It's 1% of gun deaths.

And it also, perhaps falls into a category of intervention in a different way.

So securing firearms is a big category.

And that found that to be the case definitely among gun owners that I talk to.

That this is a thoughtful thing that how they keep and why they keep.

And in the case of Emily Schmoky, who I talk to, so she has two young children.

She's had some issues where she lives, that she's concerned about home protection.

She keeps, she has two guns saves and she keeps one near her bed bolted to the night stand.

And then she has another sick, she has two firearms and another safe locked up.

I think it was interesting to me that the majority of gun owners overall are keeping guns

locked in safes. Okay, so that was a starting point and so that impression may be different

than what people think. I should also say that we're right around 350 gun owners here.

There's more than a million gun owners in Wisconsin by estimates.

So we have to be careful not to say 350 represent for a million people.

We're outside what we would call a statistical significance indicator.

And that's just really important to, but it's not nothing to talk to 350 gun owners,

who answered 30, everyone answered all of our questions.

Yeah, it's a snap. Just want to make sure that people are safe.

Yeah, it's a snap. Yeah, exactly.

So yeah, the other thing I found so interesting was how many people who respond to this poll

said they had used their gun defensively. So it was about 13%.

Yeah, yeah, so that was, that was interesting because it is what we tried to do. This is a,

this is a highly debated measurement. It's called DGU, which is defensive gun use.

Sort of on one side, you have people who are maybe more in favor of restrictions or more restrictions

say that's a really rare scenario that a defensive gun use happens. And then on the other side,

those who might be in favor of fewer restrictions would say, oh, it's, it's really common.

And then there's some, there's some studies around this that are really hotly debated.

I guess what we tried to do is define first of all what a defensive gun use is.

Like it's not just, you know, discharging or firing a gun. Like that is a defensive gun use.

If that's what the scenario is. But there's also things like announcing you have a gun,

drawing a firearm, pointing it, things like that. So we tried to break it down in that way.

And what we found was that it is a, not a majority of gun owners report this.

And it gets less and less, as you might imagine, of those, so of 357 gun owners said that they had

discharged a gun, you know, defensively. And as you mentioned, the, the percentage is more

of defensive gun use. The gun owners that I talked to, some were really surprised by that number

and felt like it was higher even than than what they thought. Oh, really?

Yeah. Jeff Ferris was like, he's like, I know, I know, you know, arguably, I mean, he's

taught classes. He knows I said, I have dozens and dozens of friends who are gun owners.

They don't none of them have ever used their gun defensively.

Jeff also told me something that was really surprising is Jeff was one of the most

staunch supporters of Conceal Carey. He was one of the first 100 people in the state to receive

Conceal Carey. And he rarely like very rarely has ever carried. And this was an interesting

phenomenon that I think non gun owners might assume that 460,000 permit holders for CCW and

Wisconsin are all carrying. It's not true. It's actually according to Jeff in his circle,

very rare. He did a little like just talking to people at the gun shop that he works. And he's

like, I talked to 100 people who have CCW permits and like almost none of them care.

And they want the permit for various reasons, but also when they take the class, if they've had

a good thorough class, you know, which isn't they're not all as good, you know, the state bar is

pretty low. So if it's a good class like Jeff gives, you know, like what the details are around

it. It's complicated. It's not a simple thing. And there's legal implications. And there's legal

calculations. There's a lot to go. And then there's just like physical carrying a firearm can be

uncomfortable. Put it that way. So that was surprising to me that there is a, you know, there's a

there's a distance maybe between the permit holders and the actual carry rate.

That's fascinating. I would never have expected that. We only have just a couple of minutes left.

And when you talk to these firearms teachers, are they seeing more people taking classes?

I guess that is what I would like to see that everybody, if you're going to own a weapon,

just make sure you know what you're doing with this thing.

Yeah. And they are seeing some upticks and some different kinds of people taking classes.

And to be clear talking among gun owners, hugely supportive of the training piece, you know,

where it comes down to is is the government the place to implement that. And that's, you know,

and that's there's a tension in there. But yet there's a commonality that's really like,

let's talk about the agreed upon need for training. Can we talk about that in the means to get there?

There may be some different routes through that. But yes, it is, it is a huge focus in the people

that I talked to about the right comes with that responsibility to train and retrain and and and

be and be an asset, you know, instead of a liability. Absolutely. John D. Drake is an investigative reporter

with a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. I highly encourage you to read the latest in the journal

Sentinel. He has about the use of guns, the poll of Wisconsin gun owners in Wisconsin.

Really appreciate you taking the time, John. Thank you so very much. Have a wonderful trip. Enjoy

enjoy Spain. Thank you all. Really appreciate it. Thanks a lot, John. Take care.

When we come back, Todd, all right. You are moving on because you have a show to prep for us. So

thank you so very much, Todd. All the way we will talk to you next Monday. Joseph,

we'll be here when we come back at 11.06. We're going to talk about Project 2025. This is As

Goes Wisconsin. I'm the civic media radio network.