Freedom Wins: Dictatorship Loses: Chapter 38
John "Policy Guy" LaPlante notifies me that Kansas has become the 36th Shall-Issue state, with the legislature overriding a gubernatorial veto:
Rep. Candy Ruff, D-Leavenworth, who promoted the bill in the House, said she immediately made three phone calls after the vote on Thursday.
One to her husband, a Leavenworth police officer who supports the concealed-firearms bill. And the two other calls went to rape victims who had contacted Ruff saying they want to carry guns to feel safer.
"People now have the right to defend themselves if they want to," said Ruff, adding she doesn't plan to get a concealed-gun permit.
"I've never had a desire to carry a concealed gun," she said. "I pushed it because two rape victims in my district asked me to."
That leaves the score as follows:
- No-issue states: 3 . Nebraska, Wisconsin and Illinois - and Wisconsin has been on the ragged brink of passing their law for a few years; a few good breaks in the Legislature will do the job. Nebraska, on the other hand, illustrates the lunacy of former MN governor Ventura's fixation with the unicameral legislature, as liberal urban interests in Omaha and Lincoln bottle up attempts at reform with the greatest of ease.
- May-Issue States: 9. California, Iowa, and a clutch of northeastern states including New York - most of which are "May, but probably won't, issue" states, except for the wealthy and well-connected; this was the system Minnesota abandoned for good in 2003.
- Shall Issue States: 36. Up from eight in 1983.
- States Without Restrictions: 2. Alaska and Vermont.
Posted by Mitch at
March 27, 2006 12:11 PM
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Do we have reciprocity with Wisconsin? Can I carry over there on my Minnesota permit?
What's an authoritative site to find out?
Posted by: nathan bissonette at March 27, 2006 03:03 PM.
Re: nathan bissonette at March 27, 2006 03:03 PM
No. They don't any leave loopholes like that laying around. Sorry.
Posted by: RBMN at March 27, 2006 03:59 PMGood news. Now is the time to follow Florida's lead and pass in Minnesota a "Castle Doctrine" law so that a gun owner in his own home, property, or car does not have to first attempt to turn and run away from an attacker. Having to "deliberate over a list of dos and don'ts in the fraction of a second it takes for an attacker to swing a knife, a carjacker to shatter a window, a rapist to pull a female into a dark alleyway" is a nonsensical requirement of a person attempting to defend himself or herself in order to avoid prosecution and/or a civil lawsuit. Good article, "Exporting Castle" in the April 2006 issue of "America's lst Freedom". Otherwise go to: www.nralia.org
Posted by: Robert Johnson at March 27, 2006 04:35 PMCompletely off point but, in James Lileks' recent Quirk in the Strib he created the name "PeeveBoy" for the "fictitious" web commenter who changes long held opinions with his contempt and poor spelling.
Posted by: chriss at March 27, 2006 05:18 PMHmmmm... PeeveBoy... PB?
Anyone else catch this?
I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
>>pass in Minnesota a "Castle Doctrine" law<<
It's not a bad idea, but it's not a high priority. Unlike Florida and some other states, we've not had a problem with people being convicted crimes as a result of legitimate acts of self defense.
Don't believe me? Browse through the MN Courts's web archive:
http://www.lawlibrary.state.mn.us/archive/
You'll find a number of cases involving convictions of individuals who claimed self-defense. But they uniformly involve situations in which there was considerable ambiguity about who was actually at fault.
What we do need, in Minnesota, is an IRKBA amendment to the State Constitution. The MN Supreme Court has ruled that the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution is not binding on the State of Minnesota in any way [291 N.W.2d 396 - In the Matter of the Application of Berton M. ATKINSON, Petitioner, Appellant.]
There are only five states that do not have RKBA provisions in their state constitutions. Minnesota is one of them - and it's time that were no longer.
Posted by: Jeff Dege at March 28, 2006 12:41 PMI did similar searches to what Jeff did, and found similar results -- well, lack of results -- when looking for failure to retreat as being the problem.
The bad news is that a very well-informed attorney of both Jeff's and my acquaintance says (and I believe him) that he's aware of several cases that, apparently, never made it to appeal where that's been just the problem in Minnesota.
That said, I think a RKBA Constitutional amendment is a good thing, but primarily as an organizing tool and wedge issue.
Posted by: Joel Rosenberg at March 30, 2006 08:45 AM