EXCLUSIVE–Sheriff Clarke: The 2nd Amendment Is Treated Like the Constitution’s Bastard Child

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke slammed Wisconsin Democrats’ determined efforts to block campus-carry for self-defense in the state’s universities, even as Americans continuously try to expand personal freedoms.

“We’re always looking to expand the exercise of liberty,” he told Breitbart News. We do it with the First Amendment, we do it with the Fourth Amendment. There are all of these different rulings coming down that say the government overstepped their authority here or went beyond their authority there,” he said.

“Then we act differently with the Second Amendment? The Second Amendment gets treated like the bastard child of the Bill of Rights.”

Open-carry on college and university campuses is currently legal in Wisconsin, but many campus buildings and classrooms are off-limits. Republicans are trying to expand the Wisconsin law to include concealed-carry so that students with carry-licenses can be armed in the classroom to halt an attack similar to the October 1 attack at Umpqua Community College.

Breitbart News (BNN) previously reported that Wisconsin Democrats responded to this push by introducing a bill to make concealed-carry on campus a felony, based on the claim guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens will make campuses less safe.

BNN asked Clarke about this and he said:

The anti-gun left used the same ‘sky is falling’ rhetoric while concealed carry was being discussed in the legislature just prior to Wisconsin becoming the 49th state to enact concealed-carry statewide. Open-carry had always been legal in Wisconsin, but concealed-carry gave citizens the option of having a concealed firearm on their person throughout the day for self-defense. And the same group that opposed concealed-carry is at it again as expanding concealed-carry to college and university campuses is under discussion. The anti-gun left just drags out these talking points–“the end of days,” “Armageddon,” “Wild West shootouts,” you name it–these same talking points have been used in every state as it enacted concealed-carry, they were used in Wisconsin, and they are being used again as concealed carry on campus is now under consideration.

But nobody has experienced these [bad] things with concealed-carry license holders. Instead, permit-holders turn out to be responsible and law-abiding individuals exercising their Second Amendment freedom. I’m tired of the law-abiding citizen with a concealed-carry license being viewed and labeled as an existential threat. It is simply not true. It has simply not been the case.

Clarke then turned to practical examples for backing the expansion of concealed carry on campuses in Wisconsin, saying, “If you look at the situation in Oregon–at Umpqua Community College–where this mass homicidal maniac lined everybody up and one by one starting mowing them down, I find it unconscionable that anybody, including the anti-gun left, would want to take the slim chance of surviving such an attack away from a law-abiding individual who might want to bring his gun on campus for self-defense.”

He added:

When we are talking about public schools–colleges and universities that are taxpayer supported–your constitutional rights should not have to be checked in at the door of a building. We don’t do that with any of right. We don’t tell person going into a building on a college campus, “You can’t exercise your First Amendment right to freedom of speech.” We don’t tell them, “You have to check your Fourth Amendment rights regarding search and seizure at the door” or “you have to check your Fifth Amendment right to counsel at the door.” So it’s time to expand the concealed carry law in Wisconsin to allow concealed carry license holders to keep their guns on their persons on campus for self-defense.

Clarke observed that various groups around the country are actively working to expand other rights in the Bill of Rights.

He said people actively try to “restrict the Second Amendment, but they don’t restrict the First Amendment or the Fourth, or the Eighth or the Sixth. No, they want to expand those, and I think it’s time that we have that same mind when it comes to the Second Amendment.”

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.