Eric Litke

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Five years after Wisconsin became the 49th state to allow concealed weapons, it remains unclear what impact the law has had on public safety — and that’s no accident.

About 8 percent of the state’s over-21 population now are permitted to carry a concealed firearm. But restrictions ostensibly designed to safeguard privacy also prevent both police and the public from studying how permit holders are behaving and how their guns are being used.

“It’s hard to create any kind of causal relationship between the law and what’s happening because we aren’t able to look specifically at the individuals who have been carrying concealed weapons,” said Jeri Bonavia, executive director of the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort. “When someone commits a murder, when a man shoots his wife and his kids, when shots are fired in road rage — is that person a concealed carry permit holder? We don’t know, because the law prevents us from having that information.”

Those opposed to the concealed carry law Gov. Scott Walker signed in November 2011 said Wisconsin would become more violent, including claims the state would turn into the “Wild West.” Supporters said the opposite was true — the threat of law-abiding citizens packing heat would tamp down crime.

A half-decade later, it’s hard to say who was right.

“The story kind of is that there is no story,” Attorney General Brad Schimel said. “I’m not aware of evidence of statistical significance that there are people who gain a permit who are committing crime with guns … and there’s not a lot of evidence of people using guns to protect themselves or others.”

But Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn sees a connection between the law’s 2011 enactment and his city’s spike in gun violence. And he notes the reason there’s no evidence is that police are prohibited from looking at their own data on the subject or revealing it to the public.

“What we’re seeing are more guns on the streets,” the chief told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. “I can tell you anecdotally we’re seeing a number of shootings involving concealed carry permit holders — many of whom have extensive criminal records — but I’m not allowed to tell you how many or whom, because the law has been carefully written to prevent analysis of that information.”

State statute limits access

State law limits what concealed carry data police can access, and even how they can analyze their own data.

Police in Wisconsin are allowed to consult the database of concealed carry permit holders only to determine whether a permit someone has or claims to have is valid, or whether someone lied on their permit application.

Statutory language also bans police from storing information they obtained under the allowable circumstances, and they cannot “sort or access information regarding vehicle stops, investigations, civil or criminal offenses or other activities” based on the person’s permit status.

The public has even more limited access, as information on whether a specific person has a permit can be released only “in the context of a prosecution for an offense in which the person's status as a licensee or holder of a certification card is relevant.”

“They’ve made it impossible to discover causation the way the law is written, so all we have are correlations, and that’s obviously a concern when it comes to evaluating the effectiveness of public policy,” Flynn said. The data “certainly would inform the public that there is a price to be paid for increasing access to concealed carry permits. The public should be aware of that price and decide if it’s excessive.”

State Rep. Jeff Mursau, R-Crivitz, the lead co-sponsor of the concealed carry bill in the Assembly, said it makes sense to go back after legislation is passed and study its impact. But he wasn’t clear on the extent of the data limitations in the concealed carry bill, suggesting the matter could be studied by the Wisconsin Legislative Council, a nonpartisan office that conducts research at legislators’ request.

“Something like that, data could be acquired probably if somebody was pretty intent on that,” Mursau said.

Not true, says the Legislative Council. The body’s senior attorney, David Moore, confirmed the agency has no access to the data since it is shielded by state statute.

When asked if Walker is comfortable with the inability to study the impact of concealed carry, spokesman Tom Evenson said the governor “believes the government should not invade the privacy of law-abiding citizens.” Evenson said the lack of a “serious effort to repeal the law” is proof it hasn’t had a negative impact.

The little information the public has to evaluate concealed carry comes from a smattering of mentions in news accounts. Those examples include a Milwaukee man convicted in 2014 of using a concealed handgun to kill an unarmed acquaintance and an Oconomowoc man who allegedly waved a gun during a road rage incident and yelled “That's right — don't (expletive) around in a concealed carry state” (it wasn’t clear if he actually had a permit).

Bonavia said the anecdotal approach “isn’t terribly informative to the public to be able to evaluate this and make the decision, 'Has this helped us or hasn’t it?'”

Wisconsin law stands in contrast to states such as Michigan, which publishes annual reports with a summary of the crimes permit holders have committed.

The Wisconsin DOJ gets a live data stream from the state court system with conviction information, but it is used only to identify if permit holders are convicted of a crime that would revoke their ability to carry a weapon.

The law also bans police from accessing concealed carry data while out on a call. They can’t, for example, look up whether a suspect barricaded in his house or someone pulled over after a high-speed chase has a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Sheboygan County District Attorney Joe DeCecco said in a 2011 press release that limitation “endangers the officers upon whom we depend for public safety.”

But Schimel said he’s comfortable with the restrictions and hasn’t heard objections to them outside of Flynn.

“Law enforcement deal with circumstances one incident at a time. I don’t know what benefit there’d be to law enforcement being able to access that data,” Schimel said. “I’ve got a little libertarian streak in me … and I get the people who don’t want that to be public information, or available to any law enforcement officer that wants to look it up.”

Crime stats show little change

About 320,000 Wisconsinites now have a concealed carry permit, and police outside of Milwaukee say they have seen little impact for better or worse.

“We only give permits to people who are law-abiding, who have no record of anything that disqualifies them from seeking that firearm, and those people don’t tend to commit crimes with the guns,” Schimel said.

Statewide, firearm injuries per capita rose slightly to an average of 513 after the passage of concealed carry, according to National Vital Statistics Reports from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

But that was consistent with growth in the national average, and Wisconsin’s ranking relative to the rest of the country actually dropped by one over that period.

Changes in violent crime (a category that includes murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) also tracked exactly with national trends, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report.

Homicides in Wisconsin have been generally consistent as well. The 71 counties excluding Milwaukee County averaged a total of 37 homicides per year in the four years before 2011 and the four years after.

Milwaukee County has been a different story, seeing the number of homicides jump from an average of 68 in the four years before concealed carry to 94 in the four years after, according to death certificate tallies from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. That spike continued this year.

James Palmer, executive director of the 10,000-member Wisconsin Professional Police Association, said he doesn’t see any connection between crime stats and the advent of concealed carry.

“Any fluctuations in crime, increase or otherwise, involve individuals utilizing guns who don’t have the lawful ability to do so,” he said.

Failed background checks, revocations rare

The one glimpse into permit holders’ behavior in Wisconsin comes from the DOJ’s annual report, which summarizes the number of licenses denied, suspended and revoked, and the reasons for those actions.

The annual reports from 2012-15 show at least 985 concealed carry permit holders were convicted of a crime that led to a revocation — typically felonies, or misdemeanor counts involving drug possession or domestic abuse.

About 1 percent of permit holders have been revoked since the law took effect, a total of more than 3,500.

More than 1,200 of those were due to the person moving out of state, and nearly 1,000 were due to criminal convictions. Others included those who became or were discovered to be fugitives from justice (63) and those involuntarily committed for mental health treatment (58).

Fourteen permit holders were also listed as revoked due to a juvenile conviction, even though those are supposed to be examined as part of the initial background check. The Attorney General’s Office could not say if those were due to the DOJ missing a juvenile record the first time around or a data entry error in the reports.

The reports also show only 1 percent of applicants fail the DOJ background check. The most frequent reasons for denial are applicants with criminal convictions (felonies, domestic abuse and drug possession are most common) or legal residence in another state.

Flynn noted those denials do not include many people labeled “habitual offenders” by the state judicial system. Committing three misdemeanors in five years can lead to that classification and enhanced criminal penalties, but those offenders can still get concealed carry permits since the law only prohibits misdemeanors that involved drugs, domestic abuse or a sentence of more than two years.

“(The concealed carry law) was written from an ideological point of view, not a practical crime-fighting point of view,” Flynn said. “You’ve got to be a pretty bad guy to get yourself three misdemeanor convictions in five years.”

Reach Eric Litke at elitke@gannett.com or on Twitter @ericlitke.

By the numbers

319,770 concealed carry permits are active in Wisconsin*

3,577 people have had their permits revoked since 2012*

Approximately 50 people per year apply for a permit while they are officially “fugitives from justice”

1% of applicants fail the Department of Justice background check

1% of permit holders have been revoked since 2012

*As of Nov. 8, 2016

Information limited on concealed carry

State statute 175.60 lays out the framework of the concealed carry law but also severely limits the ability to study its impact. Here are the basics of what can and can’t be released to police and the public.

What concealed carry data is released publicly?

Annual reports list the number of licenses applied for, issued, denied, suspended and revoked. They also summarize the reasons for the denials, suspensions and revocations (i.e. the number denied because they have a felony conviction).

What can’t be released publicly?

No information outside the annual reports can be released, including whether an arrested person has a concealed carry permit, unless the person is being prosecuted “for an offense in which the person's status as a licensee or holder of a certification card is relevant.”

What can police access?

Police can access the Department of Justice's list of concealed carry permit holders to 1) confirm a provided license card is valid, 2) confirm a claim to have a permit by someone who does not have a card, 3) investigate whether someone lied to obtain their permit, or 4) check if a person whose license was suspended or revoked turned in their card.

What can’t police access?

Police can’t check whether a person they’re engaging (such as during a traffic stop) is a concealed carry holder. They also can’t store information obtained for one of the four reasons above, and they can’t “sort or access” their own data on traffic stops or investigations based on the parties’ status as a concealed carry permit holder.