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Even in the wake of Saturday’s assassination attempt on Trump, guns are still being allowed just outside the RNC in Milwaukee this week — thanks to the gun lobby’s use of powerful state preemption laws. Also: Rock the boat. 🚨 Recent Data BreachesRecently, we’ve learned about massive data breaches related to Ticketmaster, Uber, TikTok, AT&T, and other companies. These breaches are just one way your data ends up in the hands of groups that use it to spam and scam you. However, there is a way to protect yourself with Incogni, a program that actively removes your personal data from the web, fights data brokers, and protects your privacy. CLICK HERE to get 55% OFF on Incogni’s annual plan now — use code LEVER55 at checkout. How The Gun Lobby Ensured The RNC Couldn’t Be Gun Free
By Katya Schwenk & Lois Parshley
 A performer holds a gun as he rehearses for the 2024 RNC in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) [View in browser] Even in the wake of an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump that left two dead on Saturday, guns are still being allowed just outside the Republican National Convention this week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — all thanks to the powerful gun lobby and their Republican allies, which have fought to make sure there’s no way for the city to ban firearms. Wisconsin state law prohibits cities from passing any ordinances restricting guns on public property — whether handguns or AR-15s. Republican-dominated legislatures have helped proliferate such “preemption” laws nationwide, preventing cities from making their own rules about firearms in gun-friendly states — as well as limiting the ability to pass anti-discrimination laws and protect rights like paid leave and minimum wage. This means the city of Milwaukee is prohibited from banning guns from the so-called “soft security zone” that surrounds the Republican National Convention (RNC), which is bringing 50,000 people to the city this week. Within this area, the Secret Service controls a smaller “hard zone” immediately around the convention center, where credentials are required to gain access and firearms aren’t permitted. Most guns will still be allowed in areas directly outside this perimeter, even though commonplace objects like glass bottles and tennis balls are prohibited.  Credit: U.S. Secret Service The arrangement remains even after the assassination attempt on Trump this weekend, noted Audrey Gibson-Cicchino, the RNC coordinator for the Secret Service, who said on Sunday that operational security plans would not be changing. Just last month, Milwaukee Alderman Robert Bauman tried to force a city amendment to ban guns in the security zone for the convention. But the city’s lawyers advised that any restriction on guns — apart from automatic weapons, like machine guns, that are already illegal in the state — would violate Wisconsin law. “I wanted us to go ahead and pass the ban anyway,” Bauman told The Lever, saying that as an attorney, he believed the city could make its case in court that lawmakers hadn’t intended to prevent cities from imposing basic safety requirements during a major political event. But his colleagues refused, citing concern about potential litigation. “We would garner a lawsuit, probably from a gun lobby group,” one city attorney complained at a special meeting of the city’s Public Safety and Health Committee in June. The gun lobby, including the National Rifle Association (NRA), the Second Amendment Foundation, and Gun Owners of America, have fought hard to enact and preserve these state preemption laws in Wisconsin and across the country. Now, as tens of thousands flood to Milwaukee in the wake of several years of unprecedented high-profile cases of political violence, participants are legally allowed to bring “all the ammunition you need,” into the security footprint directly adjacent to the Republican National Convention, Bauman said. “I would argue that the state legislature did not intend or envision a situation where you would be allowing firearms at a national security event,” he added.
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“The Biggest Legal Obstacle To Gun Regulation”Preemption laws generally allow higher levels of government to override lower levels of government: The federal government can preempt state governments, while states can preempt city ordinances. For much of the country’s history, local officials have kept the authority to determine their own firearm regulations. Yet over the past several decades, gun rights lobbyists and Republican lawmakers have pushed to remove this power, relaxing gun laws nationwide. In the 1980s, the small town of Morton Grove, Illinois, passed regulations prohibiting the sale or possession of handguns. In the months leading up to its vote, the village trustees for its 23,000 residents found themselves in the crosshairs of groups like the NRA, which sent out fliers protesting the ban. Another pro-gun rights group, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, wrote to each trustee, some of whom started receiving death threats. The NRA capitalized on the controversy to develop a new national strategy: Overturning local regulations in court. As a result, today “state-level preemption laws keep more gun regulation off the books than the Constitution does,” Joseph Blocher, a professor at Duke Law School, told The Lever. Wisconsin, for example, passed a state gun control law in 1995 that prevented local authorities from adopting potentially more restrictive firearm measures. Known as Act 72, it prohibited stricter laws on the sale, ownership, or permitting of guns. “[Gun lobbyists] lobbied heavily to get that state statute passed in the first place,” Bauman said. Since then, some Wisconsin lawmakers have attempted to repeal this restriction but faced robust pushback from the gun lobby and the state GOP, which controls both legislative chambers. In 2017, the local gun rights advocates group Wisconsin Carry brought a lawsuit against Madison’s City of Transit and Parking Commission to get rid of a local ban on guns on public buses. Wisconsin Carry argued that it violated Act 72, which had intended to make a uniform standard for firearm requirements across the state. In 2017, the state’s Supreme Court agreed. The NRA has filed briefs of support in previous Wisconsin lawsuits supporting the state’s preemption laws, including in a case in 2006 over whether a bar owner could be prosecuted for carrying a gun in his car. They argue that preemption laws prevent a confusing patchwork of regulations. In March, a group of Democratic Wisconsin lawmakers introduced a bill to end the preemption law for firearms, as they did in the previous legislative session. But, like in years prior, the bill failed in the Republican-controlled legislature. Gun advocacy groups, including Wisconsin Firearm Owners, registered to lobby on the bill. It’s no coincidence that the majority of states now use preemption as a tool to support gun rights. Nationally, forty-three states now have preemption laws restricting local governments’ attempts to rein in gun violence. States like Colorado preempt regulations around particular conditions such as having guns in private vehicles, while others, like Texas, prohibit local authorities from weighing in on everything from transportation to licensing to discharging weapons. A few even punish local lawmakers: Officials in Florida can be fined $5,000 for violating the state’s preemption laws, and in Kentucky, they can face criminal charges. Preventing ProgressIncreasingly, it’s not just guns that fall under preemption laws. Just as the NRA has recently expanded its lobbying efforts beyond gun rights, preemption regulations are now being wielded as a tool for other popular conservative issues. Wisconsin now has preemptions against everything from inclusionary zoning and rent control to banning plastic bags. “Particularly in an era when we’ve seen a growing divide between the legislatures of red states and the preferences of blue cities within those states,” said Blocher at Duke Law School, “there’s been a real push for preemption laws.” The Wisconsin legislature passed a bill in 2018 to prevent local authorities from developing their own employment law, including on matters like minimum wage. It’s the latest setback in a string of efforts to improve labor protections. Milwaukee tried to require paid sick leave back in 2008, for instance. But in 2011, the state passed a ban prohibiting local governments from requiring employers to compensate ill workers. “These types of legislature blockages have had a disproportionately severe effect on urban areas, where many of the state’s residents of color live,” found the Wisconsin Budget Project, an advocacy group focused on children. A recent report by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank, found that Southern and Midwestern states are more likely to misuse preemptions to interfere with labor standards. They write that state preemption laws are “intertwined with a history of segregation and other policy choices that have reinforced anti-Black racism and white supremacy.” 💡 Follow us on Apple News and Google News to make sure you see our stories first, and to help make sure others see our breaking news as well. These laws have also been increasingly used to support the interests of deep-pocketed corporations. Pro-business groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), for instance, have backed preemption efforts on a variety of issues. ALEC lobbied to prohibit the expansion of public broadband access; its members have ties to major telecommunications companies. In states like Wisconsin, model language drafted by the group to block municipalities from competing with corporate providers of broadband services was passed in 2004. As legislation efforts continue to hamper local governments from pursuing public safety regulations, this week in Milwaukee, officials like Bauman will be holding their breath. Nor will the threat abate after the RNC wraps up — gun violence in Milwaukee will continue to be a problem even after the convention is over. Bauman doesn’t see much chance of that changing until the state’s preemption laws do. “I said, if there’s one area where we can take some charge of this, it’s this event,” Bauman said. But it’s “not to be.”
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