shotbanner.jpeg

May 17, 2005

Make Mine Colt

Among the Twin Cities media, I'd imagine about 10% of the reporters, producers and editors know any more about firearms than what you can see in a Tarantino movie.

Mark Yost is an extreme exception; a (I'm told) former Marine, he's covered the firearms beat for other publications, and is a committed shooter.

His piece in today's PiPress, "Praise The Lord and Pass the Ammunition", is notable not so much for what it says - some of us have been writing this stuff for years - as for where it says it. To my knowledge, this is the first time an in-house columnist in the Twin Cities has ever known his head from his tush when it came to firearms and gun laws, much less told the absolute shining truth about both.

Yost:

Arguably the greatest good done Friday was in deleting several amendments to MPPA that went squarely against the core principles that once guided this country. One amendment would have barred permit holders from taking weapons into universities; another would have allowed cities to ban guns in their buildings and parks. While both sound sensible, there's one small thing standing in their way: the U.S. Constitution.

Among the core tenets of the Constitution that have been thrown over the side in favor of political expediency is the fundamental belief that the Constitution grants — or limits — specific, enumerated powers to the government. The Constitution, at least as it was originally written and intended, places no limits whatsoever on personal behavior. Somewhere along the way, that idea got lost.

And, with any luck, this bill will be a part of getting that idea back.

Yost continues on one of the most visible manifestations of the bill:

That's why I don't have a problem with private businesses putting up signs that say they ban guns; they're fully within their right to do that (Of course, it's also an open invitation to robbers, but that's their problem).

The Senate also deleted language that would have barred permit holders from taking guns into churches. Again, this is as it should be. Churches are private entities; the government has no authority to tell them who or what they can let into their sanctuaries. So while the amendments to the MPPA might have felt like the right thing to do, constitutionally they couldn't have been more wrong.

Exactly.

I have been very parsimonious about patronizing posted businesses in the past two years; unless I really need something, I go to a non-posted store, pretty religiously, and I urge you to do the same. And any church that makes a sanctimonious point about disarming its parishioners is a church that likely foments a lot of other objectionable crap, and is one I'll take pains not to attend. But like Mark says, it's their right.

The piece also tosses a few commonsense brickbats at the ignorance of some area legislators:

it also looks like Minnesota's effort to pass its own assault-weapon ban — to replace the equally misguided federal law that thankfully expired in September — is going nowhere. Section 1 of SF1946 lists the usual litany of mean-looking weapons: the AK-47, MAC-10, Uzi and AR-15.

The AR-15 is my favorite because it perfectly illustrates the illogic of this legislation. The AR-15 fires the same bullet at the same muzzle velocity at the same rate of fire as the Ruger Mini-14. More important, a Ruger Mini-14 was used in the shooting of Edina police officer Michael Blood during a November 2000 bank robbery.

So why is the AR-15 on the list and the Ruger isn't? Because it looks scarier.

This lunacy is made clearer when you consider that assault weapons are used in a minuscule number of crimes. This is apparently news to Sen. Satveer Chaudhary, sponsor of the assault-weapon ban.

"Law enforcement often encounters these weapons," he told me. "Assault weapons in general are the gun of choice for criminals."

Sorry, Senator, but guns aren't the weapon of choice in assaults. According to 2003 Minnesota BCA statistics, guns were used in 1,140 urban aggravated assaults. Knives were used in 1,592, "other weapons" in 1,553, and hands and feet in 1,883. So if the Senate and the numerically challenged Million Moms — who wrote the Minnesota assault-weapon legislation — really want to make a difference, they'll start a movement to cut off the hands and feet of repeat violent offenders. Banning assault weapons will have little effect.

Read the whole thing, and try to see if there's another paper in town that has the nerve to tell the truth.

Posted by Mitch at May 17, 2005 08:25 AM | TrackBack
Comments

As trespassers know, about the signs that say "NO TRESPASSING": the other side of the sign doesn't say anything. That's the side they obey, just like violent criminals obey only the back of "NO GUNS ALLOWED" (a.k.a. CRIMINALS WELCOME) signs--the side with no rules.

Posted by: RBMN at May 17, 2005 01:23 PM

It's flawed logic to say that businesses which post a firearms sign become a target for criminals. What are the odds at any point when you enter a business that someone is carrying and how much more safe would you feel if you knew that one of the customers is?
A safe feeling comes from the atmosphere a business creates and the clientele it serves. I don't want to go to a business that NEEDS metal detectors or deterrent signs whether or not it has them. Gun Rights, Schrmun Rights, I feel equally safe in a bar sixty miles west of Pierre, SD, where every truck has a gun rack and over half of the patrons probably have a weapon of some kind on their person, as I do at the hardware store on 34th Ave S and 52nd St in Minneapolis that has a posted sign. If you want to feel unsafe go to unsafe places or act like a dick. Otherwise, act like a Republican and take responsibility for your actions remembering you take a risk each time you cross a street. Life didn't come with the guarantee you'll reach retirement age, be thankful for what God has given you.

Posted by: Matt at May 17, 2005 04:32 PM

I recall a string of hold ups of several St. Paul bars not long ago where the robbers specifically targeted establishments with no-guns signs.

Posted by: Gideon at May 18, 2005 05:15 AM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?
hi