A major victory for gun rights was won in Wisconsin, hopefully setting a precedent that could go nationwide.

The state Supreme Court has ruled cities can not ban people from carrying weapons on city buses.

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The decision was a long-time in the making. In 2005, Madison’s City Transit and Parking Commission instituted a rule barring weapons on buses. It was challenged in 2013, but the city refused to budge, so a lawsuit was filed by Wisconsin Carry, Inc.

And they just won their case – due in large part to the state’s strong constitutional protections for the bearing of arms.

But the biggest reason was the state’s “shall issue” statute of 1011, which gives permit holders the right to carry “anywhere in the state” with certain rare exceptions. The Truth About Guns reports

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In 2013, the legislature passed a further statute to strengthen state pre-emption of firearms laws. That statute forbade local governments from passing ordinances or resolutions that regulated the possession, bearing or transportation of any knife or firearm, among other things. Wisconsin Carry relied on Act 35 and the “Local Regulation Statute” for their arguments. Wisconsin Carry decided to focus on striking down the City of Madison weapon ban, and not to broaden their argument to constitutional issues. That may have been a tactical error. At the oral arguments, the Supreme Court justices asked if there were any constitutional arguments to strike down the City bus ban.

The state supreme court has also changed considerably. There are only two far-left justices left on the court, the rest are constitutional originalists.

The decision took five months to render. In their decision, the courts affirmed the state’s constitutional protection of the right to keep and bear arms as “fundamental and pre-existing prior to the Constitution.”

In that decision, the justices cited several other states that had effectively neutered their own state constitutions’ right to arms. Rather than simply apply the words of Wisconsin’s new amendment, the 2003 case was an example of an “everyone else has neutered amendments we do not like” argument. RELATED: BOOM: How Home Invasions Look to Pajama Boys vs. Gun Owners In Madison, and all across the State of Wisconsin, individuals may now exercise their right to bear arms on public transport, without fear of legal prosecution.





