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Madison - Rad Buzdum and his friends didn't want to wait to mail their concealed carry permit applications, so they drove to the Capitol from Watertown to deliver them in person.

They were part of a rush of applications that began flooding into the Department of Justice on Tuesday, the first day of Wisconsin's concealed carry law.

"The bad citizens could always carry them," Buzdum said of concealed weapons. He owns a tavern in Watertown.

Added his friend Lance Dopke: "I don't know why Wisconsin took so long to do this."

As of 3:45 p.m., 145 applications had been received by the Department of Justice, and of those, 123 had been approved and 85 had been printed.

Applications could not be submitted until Tuesday, and by 9 a.m., 83,000 forms had been downloaded.

The first applicant to receive a permit was Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, who oversees the department.

"All this work deserves something," Van Hollen said as he showed a reporter his permit, which had "#1" printed on it.

"We were careful in screening people for the first permits who were going to be understanding if the process didn't flow smoothly," he said. "Part of the reason why I went No. 1 was because if things went awry, who am I going to complain to?"

On an average day the Wisconsin Department of Justice's website gets 81,600 hits, but almost 10 times that many hits were registered by noon on Tuesday - around 800,000, according to department spokeswoman Dana Brueck.

To receive a concealed carry permit in Wisconsin, applicants must be at least 21, pass a background check and undergo training. Wisconsin becomes the 49th state to allow people to carry concealed weapons; Illinois is the only state without a concealed carry law.

Buzdum owned a tavern in Milwaukee that was the scene of a shooting by a disgruntled patron in the 1990s.

"That night if I had my gun on me," Buzdum said, he could have intervened.

Buzdum's friend Andy Rosenow of Watertown agreed.

"This evens the playing field," Rosenow said of the law.

Inside Van Hollen's office, the phones were ringing almost constantly Tuesday afternoon with callers asking questions. Some wanted to know what kind of documentation they needed if they served in the military - the answer is an honorable discharge document. Others wanted to know how long it would take to get their permits - the state has 45 days to issue them once a valid application is received.

For most of the questions, the answers are on the Department of Justice's website.

Big workload expected

Officials are anticipating that as many as 200,000 applications could be submitted in the first few months, said Dave Zibolski, deputy administrator in the Division of Law Enforcement Services. That's based on comparable states that have concealed carry laws as well as Wisconsin's population.

"I think it's going very smoothly," Zibolski said. "We're anticipating high volume in the first couple weeks."

Zibolski noted that since Wisconsin has a large number of hunters, many applicants already have satisfied the concealed carry permit requirement of firearms training through hunter safety training, which is mandated for any hunter born on or after Jan. 1, 1973.

Right now, 18 people are processing concealed carry applications, though 10 of those positions are part time and are funded by the Legislature only until March. Zibolski said the permitting process is labor intensive since each application must be manually checked. Once the applications are OK'd, a machine can print up to 1,500 permits per hour.

Law protested

Outside and inside the Capitol on Tuesday, a few protesters carried signs criticizing the new law.

Steve Books of Mount Horeb held a sign that said "Don't Shoot" on one side and "My Opposition to Concealed Carry can't be concealed" on the other.

"I thought . . . if you wanted a gun holstered on your side, (that) was OK. I think this is taking it a step too far," Books said. "I don't think the NRA should legislate what Wisconsin should do."

Books also said he thought it was ridiculous that spectators cannot use cameras in the public gallery of the Assembly chamber but can have a concealed weapon.

Another protester, Bill Dunn of Middleton, said he's never been threatened by anyone carrying a gun and sees no need for Wisconsin residents to carry concealed weapons, calling it a solution without a problem.

"I think people have gone overboard on the Second Amendment. I think it probably referred to militias and not individual gun rights," Dunn said. "I don't think more guns make us safe."

In the attorney general's office, a table was set up with a stack of preprinted envelopes and glue sticks to seal the envelopes. People placed their completed applications in the envelopes, which went into a large plastic tub that was emptied periodically throughout the day.

Max Harn of Madison said he came to the Capitol to submit his application because "I read there were like 80,000 downloaded this morning, so I wanted to beat the rush. I didn't want to wait a month and a half."

Patrick Marley of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.