The Fix Is In

It's not what you know. It's who you know.

It's true in the worlds of business, politics, job-hunting. It's moreso in the world of the media.

David Lillehaug has cultivated a very broad rolodex in his years in the public eye; between his time as the US Attorney for the area and his stints as a DFL candidate, he's gotten name recognition not only among citizens, but where he really needs it, among the cognoscenti - lobbyists, opinionmakers (he apparently gets along cordially enough with David Strom to be a fairly genial regular on his radio show), the people on the shadowy edges of power, and of course the media.

And it's there that the story begins. KARE11 ran an egregiously bad "investigation" of concealed carry reform last Sunday.

he murder of 43-year-old William “Billy” Walsh re-ignited public debate about the law, whose supporters say it’s a logical extension of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

His accused killer, 26-year-old Zachary Ourada, was one of nearly 26,000 Minnesotans who received permits to carry handguns under the act, which was passed in 2003. And what happened that night at Nye’s represented what many people say is the fundamental problem with the law:

Almost anyone who hasn’t been convicted of specific violent crimes can get a permit to carry a gun in public.

The KARE11 report proceeds to get nearly everything wrong.

Joel Rosenberg eviscerates the "investigation" merely with the facts at hand. We'll come back to Rosenberg's piece in a bit.

Looking at the KARE11 piece, it seems fairly clear that they were spoon-fed much of the story by people with an axe to grind; the omissions (of convenience or ignorance) are pretty one-sided.

Where to start:

On the night of May 12, Walsh asked a patron to leave the bar. Witnesses would later tell police that Zachary Ourada, of Minneapolis, was acting intoxicated and had been harassing women.

Police say Ourada shot Walsh four times in the back, then ran toward the Mississippi River and jumped in.

When police fished Ourada out of the river and arrested him, he yelled, “I didn’t do nothin’ wrong, man! I got a permit to carry that bitch!”

Two things the story missed:

1. Ourada wasn't carrying during the altercation when he was tossed from the bar. The story's writing sounds like he was tossed to the street, turned as he drew his pistol, and unloaded on Walsh. However, he was apparently driven home by friends who hoped he'd sleep it off. Instead, he got his gun and drove back to Nye's.
2. As Rosenberg notes, carrying a gun while drunk was legal the night of the shooting - thanks to David Lillehaug:"There was no statutory prohibition on carrying while intoxicated before the first Personal Protection Act went into effect on May 28, 2003. When, on June 12, 2004, Judge Finley overturned the MCPPA on a technicality over how it was passed, the old law (pre-2003 law) was in effect, and there was, once again, no legal prohibition against carrying while intoxicated until the day after Governor Pawlenty signed MCPPA2 back into law. That was quite literally weeks after May 12, when Ourada killed "Big Billy" Walsh."

I'm sure that's not part of what Lillehaug and friends told KARE11's reporters.

Back to the KARE11 report:

Earlier that night, Snyder said Ourada had been asked to leave The Times, as well. He said Ourada was waving his permit to carry a handgun in the air and bragging about having it.

“He was showing it like a badge,” Snyder said. “Some sort of power, that’s what it gave him. He wanted people to be afraid of him because he had this.”

Note to anyone who is in a bar with someone like this; call a cop. This is not acceptable behavior.

The report turns to blind up-sucking to Lillehaug:

“When you read the (Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s) report on the first year of the law, it makes your hair stand on end,” said former U.S. Attorney David Lillehaug.

The report cited by Lillehaug, who is one of the gun law’s most vocal critics, says some of the people who received permits to carry handguns under the act had been accused – and in some cases, convicted – of criminal activity.

According to the BCA report, people with convictions for domestic assault, arrests for firearms violations, and in one case, six convictions for driving while intoxicated, received permits in 2003.

We'll come back to that in a bit, when we review Joel Rosenberg's report on the piece - but it's at this point we need to ask "if this is true (and one must always qualify that when dealing with opponents of this law), why? Why aren't the sheriffs doing their job?"

“The conceal-carry proponents marketed the idea that, for two years, a lot of people had received permits and nothing had gone wrong,” David Lillehaug said. “And then, hours before the legislature re-passes the law, a permit holder is charged with murder.

“And the silence,” he said, “is just deafening.”

No, we're plenty vocal. We just don't have friends at KARE11 who'll pass our version of events, unvarnished, into their reports.

The Senate not only passed the law a few days after the Walsh shooting, they passed it by a huge margin - because the shooting had nothing to do with the carry permit law. It seems likely that if Henco Sheriff McGowan were doing his job, Ourada would never have been given a permit - but then, that's more fodder for Joel Rosenberg. We'll get to that later.

Hennepin County Sheriff Pat McGowan points out, driving while intoxicated is not a disqualifying offense. And, he says, the law does not give sheriffs and police chiefs the discretion they once had to deny permits to a people with a history of bad behavior.

“That discretion was basically eliminated out of the bill,” he said. “It’s very, very narrow on who you can deny to.”

Sen. Pariseau’s bill does allow sheriffs to deny permits if there’s a “substantial likelihood” someone will harm himself or others. And in Zachary Ourada’s case, she said she was “very disappointed, because, obviously, this is someone who shouldn’t have a permit.”

Look at those three points:

• McGowan wistfully remembers the days when his office routinely rejected nearly every application.
• Senator Pariseau explains that sheriffs do have some say in permits - they just have to have cause, unlike the old law.
• Despite this, Ourada - a man with plenty of legal problems - got a permit, even though his record fairly screamed "DO NOT ISSUE".

Why?

But Sheriff McGowan, whose office would have issued Ourada’s permit, says the cost involved in denying a permit complicates things.

“If an individual appeals to the court, and we lose the appeal, we are responsible for all the legal costs associated with that claim,” he said.

McGowan says his office is “diligent” and looks at more of a person’s background than the law requires. But he wasn’t able to elaborate on specific cases, because the law forbids him from talking about permit holders, including Ourada.

“And that’s the thing I think you in the media need to be very cautious of,” he said. “You ought not go in and try to make assumptions without knowing the facts of every single case. And unfortunately, because of the data practices law, without a court order, you’re not going to be able to get those facts.”

Clever. The law won't allow him to talk...about his office's screwup. More when we address Joel Rosenberg's post.

Although part of the answer comes in the next clip:

[The Ramsey County sheriff's office] denies permits to three percent of all applicants – more than any other county.

Fletcher says his investigators specifically look at someone’s past behavior, including every time an applicant’s name shows up in a police report.

He says someone with multiple DWIs would not be approved.

“If a person has a history of violent and disorderly behavior, the odds are they’re going to continue,” he said. “Only now they have a handgun.”

Exactly.

Now, if Ramco sheriff Bob Fletcher knows this, why doesn't Pat McGowan?

Fletcher asks for Lillehaug's Christmas present:

Fletcher, like Sheriff McGowan, said a more flexible law would save money, because the application fee of 100 dollars doesn’t come close to covering the cost of denying a permit.

“In many cases, if we appeal to court, there’s three or four thousand dollars’ worth of county attorney time, and our time, to present that in front of a judge,” he said.

A "more flexible law" in this case means a "law that gives the sheriff complete power".

As to the finances, Fletcher is padding like mad. More on this later.

Sheriff Fletcher predicts more sheriffs will try to deny more permits.

“My guess is that the Nye’s incident will be a red flag for sheriffs throughout Minnesota,” he said.

In other words, they'll do their job under the law. This is not a bad thing.

And when Zachary Ourada goes on trial for the murder of Billy Walsh, in a way, the law will be on trial, too, when the court of public opinion asks: Is the Personal Protection Act living up to its name?

And I'd like to say that once things go to court, at least the facts will prevail.

Although in Minnesota courts, I'm not that confident.

Rosenberg's piece later today.

Posted by Mitch at June 14, 2005 07:08 AM | TrackBack