PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
Milwaukee bar owner's self-defense struggle leads to Second Amendment win :: 06/11/2015
MILWAUKEE — It was a warm summer night. The front doors of Kochanski’s Concertina Beer Hall on Milwaukee’s 37th St. were wide open to let in the night air.
As the final two patrons finished up their last round in the beer garden just before midnight on Aug. 15, 2013, three men wandered in.
They were up to no good.
One man’s face was partially hidden behind a hooded sweatshirt; the other two masked faces with bandanas.
BAR TO BILL: Kochanski’s Concertina Beer Hall on Milwaukee’s 37th Street was the scene of an attempted armed robbery and fatal shooting in August 2013. The bar’s owner was cleared of any wrongdoing in shooting one of the suspects, but he had to wait several months to get his gun back. On Tuesday, the state Assembly passed a bill setting a timeline for the return of guns in such cases.
Andy Kochanski, owner of the popular nightspot, said the men were heading toward his patrons. One yelled, “This is a robbery! Get your money out!”
“The first guy had his hands in his pockets, the other two had visible weapons out,” Kochanski recalled in an interview Tuesday with Wisconsin Watchdog.
“The one guy with a gun locked eyes with me. As he was raising his weapon at me he was saying, “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!’ I got my gun out faster than he did. They all started scrambling around. I anticipated return fire so I started targeting at all of them. One guy went down. The other two started to head for the door. I stopped shooting when the door closed,” the bar owner said.
Kochanski warned the armed robber not to move and checked to see if there were any weapons around him. He stepped outside and found one weapon in his foyer and the other on the sidewalk. The former firefighter then administered CPR to the robbery suspect, who was lying face down on the barroom floor.
He had no idea at the time of the robbery that two of the men were carrying BB guns.
Milwaukee County prosecutors shortly after the incident said Kochanski acted in self-defense and in defense of his patrons.
But police seized his gun at the scene and it took him 7 ½ months to get it back.
A couple weeks after the attempted armed robbery, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke spoke to more than 100 people attending a concealed carry class at Kochanski’s Concertina Beer Hall. Clarke said people who shoot someone in self-defense should get their guns back within two days of being cleared of criminal charges.
The sheriff vowed to lobby lawmakers to pass legislation that would expedite the return of firearms in similar cases.
On Tuesday, nearly two years after Kochanski’s gun was seized, Assembly Bill 13 passed on a voice vote. It now heads to the Senate.
The bill mandates the return of property to those who have been cleared of charges in connection with the seizure of a firearm or ammunition. It creates a timeline for the entire process, ensuring that individuals will no longer be subjected to long wait times for the return of their property.
It’s not 48 hours, but the bill does set a maximum of 35 business days for the return of a weapon seized in such cases.
Gun owners cleared of criminal wrongdoing may petition the court, and within 20 business days the court must schedule a hearing into the matter. Within five business days after the hearing, the court has to come to a decision. If the judge determines the weapon must be returned, the law enforcement entity involved in the investigation is required to do so within 10 business days.
“Cleaning up the firearm return process is something that is necessary here in Wisconsin,” said state Rep. Dan Knodl, R-Germantown, author of the bill. “Law-abiding citizens have been unjustly penalized by the criminal justice system for too long. Today, we took a step to right that wrong by clarifying the return of property to its lawful owner.”
Inspector Edward H. Bailey of the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department earlier this year testified the bill “constitutes an admirable effort to reinforce the protection of the Second Amendment to private citizens in Wisconsin.”
“And I have personally worked with persons involved in self-defense or defense of other shootings, in which the subject’s only firearm was seized, again very responsibly and reasonably, in connection with the ensuing investigation with that seizures stretching on, in the eyes of the person from whom the property was taken, interminably … month after month,” Bailey wrote in support of the bill.
In some cases, the delay is a consequence of the slow-moving wheels of justice. The weapons remain in police custody until after a trial.
Kochanski said that’s what he was told, that the state needed his gun for evidence. But it remained in police custody after sentencing.
The incident in August 2013 wasn’t the first time Kochanski was involved in a shootout at his establishment. During a Christmas party in 2008, two armed robbers walked in and shot Kochanski. He returned fire. He believes he shot the man, but the suspects fled and there was no blood trail at the scene.
“Apparently the second set of guys didn’t get the memo to not screw with my establishment. I’m quick on the draw,” Kochanaski said.
He added that Kochanski’s Concertina Beer Hall is sometimes described as the “Safest Bar in Milwaukee.”
http://watchdog.org/223328/milwaukee-second-amendment-self-defense/
