Court Opinion

ID: 9703627
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:02:40.009462+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:50.736849
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, CHIEF JUSTICE
¶ 51. (concurring). I join Justice Prosser's concurrence except that part of his concurrence in which he states that he "strongly support[s] much of the majority opinion."1 I have reservations about parts of the majority opinion.
*559¶ 52. For example, it does not make sense to me that the majority opinion gives a statute that predates a constitutional amendment the presumption of constitutionality under the later-enacted constitutional amendment.2 The presumption of constitutionality is based on the reasonable belief that a legislature intends to enact laws that are valid under the Constitution at the time they are enacted, not the unreasonable assumption that a legislature can anticipate all future constitutional amendments and draft constitutionally immortal statutes.
¶ 53. Furthermore, I am not persuaded that there is any difference between rational basis test and the majority opinion's "reasonable exercise of police power" test.3 The exercise of police power must always be reasonable, that is reasonably and rationally related to a legitimate government interest.4 The concealed weapons statute is constitutional if it represents a reasonable exercise of the State's police power and does not eviscerate the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.5
¶ 54. For the reasons set forth, I write separately.

 See majority op., ¶¶ 12, 17.

 See majority op., ¶ 26.

 See Noranda Exploration, Inc. v. Ostrom, 113 Wis. 2d 612, 626, 335 N.W.2d 596 (1983).

 See State v. Hamdan, 2003 WI 113, ¶ 115, 264 Wis. 2d 433, 665 N.W.2d 785 (Abrahamson, C.J., dissenting), for further explanation of my views about the appropriate test to be applied.