To: Catharine Richert, “Poligraph” writer at MPR
From: Mitch Berg, mere peasant
Re: Here’s a dandy story idea!

Ms. Richert,

You’ve been doing “Poligraph” at Mnnesota Public Radio for quite some time now.   The ongoing feature purports to fact-check Minnesota politicians’ statements.

Now, a quick glance through the Poligraph page seems to show that most of your “fact-checking” involves going over statements…by Republicans.  The statements, and the facts in question, can frequently be more than a little bit picayune, but the point isn’t so much that you fact-check a lot of things that are, to most people, pretty ephemeral stuff as it is that your efforts seem so very, very one-sided.

Now, on the one hand I’m one of those rare conservatives who credits MPR’s News operation for at least trying for some sort of balance.  Tom Scheck did an excellent piece on Alliance For A Better Minnesota, for example.  Two years after I did it, naturally, and long-lagging my own extensive coverage of ABM’s efforts, but then he’s gotta cover a lot of stuff, and it’s fine.  Better late than never (although I do wonder why MPR’s coverage of things that don’t carefully buff the DFL’s sheen always happen in the dead of winter, long before anyone actually cares about politics, but again, just a quibble).  As a rule, I appreciate the job MPR News does, while believing it could do better.

On the other hand, I do realize you work for MPR, you’re a graduate of the impeccably-“progressive” Humprey Institude, and beyond all that that you have to serve your Volvo-driving, Carlton-degree-holding, Wellstone-worshiping, Crocus-Hill-dwelling, latte-drinking master.  And that DFL-voting master just loooooves to have her ego stroked, whether during the pledge drives (I noticed a lot more of the “we MPR listeners are a smart, discerning bunch!” promos during your pledge drive) and in between.  Which means tackling those nasty, talk-radio-listening Republicans.

So it’d be interesting to see if you ever manage to get around to “Poligraphing” the most egriegious, pants-soaked-in-napalm lies in Minnesota politics today – those being told by the likes of Dakota County Attorney Jim Backstrom and the various metro police chiefs about the “Stand Your Ground” bill.  Quite simply, nothing they say – nothing, nada, bupkes – has even the faintest grain of truth to it.

(I’ll bring you up to speed:  Stand Your Ground would treat people who shoot in self-defense on their property a presumption of innocence.  Currently, to claim self-defense, you have to essentially say “I’m guilty, but here’s my explanation…”, and hope the explanation suits the prosecutor, judge and jury.  Sometimes it works.  Sometimes it really really doesn’t.

Now, Backstrom, Darth Lillehaug, and some of the Metro police chiefs (and headline writers) claim that the bill would “legalize murder”, which is a slander both to the law-abiding owner and the cops and prosecutors who investigate the shootings – as if they can’t tell the difference between a legitimate self-defense shooting and a criminal act.

But more importantly for your beat, Ms. Richert, it’s right in your wheelhouse.  You have Minnesota politicans – and, even worse, officers of the court – lying about the law.  To Minnesotans..

That’s your beat, right?

Now, I realize that the Volvo-driving, free-range-alpaca-wearing, Saint-Olaf-diploma-sporting, latte-drinking, Merriam-Park-dwelling crowd that is your audience base might find guns and Second Amendment supporters unfashionable.  I get that.

But, again – politicians lying to the people.  In the news.

While this might take time away from poring over Michele Bachmann’s grocery list, I”m just saying.  You smelling what I’m cooking?

That is all.

Craig Bannister in CNS news reports on the Georgetown Law School student’s frankly bizarre testimony yesterday:

Speaking at a hearing held by Pelosi to tout Pres. Obama’s mandate that virtually every health insurance plan cover the full cost of contraception and abortion-inducing products, Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke said that it’s too expensive to have sex in law school without mandated insurance coverage.

Forget for a moment that Georgetown is the province of this nation’s self-appointed “elite” – Ms. Fluke and her classmates are paying $23K plus fees per year, and it’s pretty much an upper-middle-class fiefdom.  We’re not talking Metro State, here.

No – it’s a school for this nation’s self-appointed “elite”.

And it shows in the frustrated Ms. Fluke’s testimony:

“Forty percent of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they struggled financially as a result of this policy (Georgetown student insurance not covering contraception), Fluke reported.

It costs a female student $3,000 to have protected sex over the course of her three-year stint in law school, according to her calculations.

$3K for three years? $1K a year?  $80 a month?  $2.50 or so a day?

Numbers like these bespeak a career in Mark Ritchie’s State Department, or the DFL’s budget office.

That’s what your “elite” school tuition gets you these days.

And that’s what their graduates get you; you, Mr. Copier Repairman in Alexandria, will be paying for law students’ birth control.

And they, the future elite, would be paying for yours – except you’re working too hard to have any time for sex anymore anyway.

Stand Your Ground – Tony Cornish’s bill that would give the law-abiding citizen a presumption of innocence when shooting in self-defense on their own property and in their own cars – passed the Senate this week.  Today, according to the schedule, it’s the House’s turn.

You need to call your Representatives.

And this time, I have a special mission for those of you who, like me, are “represented” by DFL hamsters.

There’s little question this bill will pass the Republican House.  It passed the Senate with four extra outstate DFLers for good measure.  The outstate DFLers, working outside the Metro DFL’s “Cone Of Stupid”, know what Real Minnesota thinks about this issue.  They know that voting against this bill will be poison for them and the rest of the outstate DFL this fall when they’re all up for re-election.

Naturally, call your Representative.  If they’re Republican, chances are they’re right on the issue; encourage them to vote for the bill, and thank them for their support.

But if your rep is a DFLer, it’s even more important that you call.  They do  keep track of who calls.  And if the DFL looks at the numbers and sees where the callers really stand on this issue, they’ll do the math.  Their outstate representatives – the few that are left – have enough problems, and the DFL can’t govern with just the metro area.  They know this – at least in theory.

So if your Rep is a DFLer, especially a DFLer from outside the 494-694 ring, make a special appointment to call, ASAP.  Encourage them to listen to Real Minnesotans (*) as opposed to Alita Messinger, and vote for the bill.

Because if Mark Dayton vetoes the bill, we’ve got a shot at an override.  It’ll be tough, but it’s doable – especially if the entire legislature, including the GOP’s leadership, knows that Real Minnesota is, figuratively, up in arms.

And of course, the real overturn comes this fall.  Even the DFL knows that.  And they – the ones outside the metro, anyway – know their history.

So let’s light up those phone lines one more time for this one.

(*) And yes, “Real Minnesotans” are, by definition, pro-Second Amendment.  Just like Real Americans.  And yes, that does mean if you’re anti-Second Amendment you are not a real American.  Sorry to break the news.  There’s time to change.

Was it the money the DFL spent over the past twenty-odd years pushing for the appointment of left-leaning judges?

Was it the money they spent pressuring largely DFL and moderate GOP-controlled legislatures to confirm DFL-friendly judges?

Or was in the money the national left poured into astroturf pressure groups like “Draw The Line” and “Common Cause“, which spent years and millions putting a non-partisan, politic face on the DFL’s naked push for power at any cost?

Or was it all the money that Darth Lillehaug billed?

Who cares?  The DFL got what they needed; another ten year reprieve from irrelevancy:

Most observers surprised that lege map didn’t yield bigger Republican advantageIn the first hours and days after the state’s new redistricting maps landed at the Capitol Tuesday, the collective sense of relief among Minnesota Democrats was unmistakable. Many DFLers admitted to being pleasantly surprised by the final rendering of the state’s new political boundaries, which will help determine the outcome of elections for the next decade. “What was it Churchill said?” smiled one suburban House Democrat. “There’s nothing as exhilarating as being shot at and missed?”Republicans were not so pleased.

The piece is by Briana Biersbach at PIM, and it’s very much worth a read.

Let’s be clear here; the biggest news in the redistricting was that it didn’t reflect what most credible observers on both sides saw  as the inevitable; that rapid growth in healthy, well-run GOP-represented areas wasn’t reflected in the new map, while the mismanaged, needy, sclerotic DFL parts of the state are now disproportionally represented.

The real losers? All of you people who moved to the exurbs and central MN to get away from the DFL.

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

Based on initial reporting, which we know is always wrong, but this timetable is for illustrative purposes, not precision:

Shooting occurs at 7:45.

A teacher saw the shooting and chased the gun-wielder, who escaped.

Students started texting their parents about the shooting before 8:00.

Ambulances start to arrive shortly after 8:00

School is locked down and parents are told it’s not safe to enter at 8:21

School evacuated at 8:30

SWAT arrives at 8:45.

Analysis: the school responded promptly and ambulances were there incredibly quickly. The teacher undoubtedly saved lives by chasing the gunman out of the building.

The cops were useless.

Joe Doakes

Como Park

I don’t as a rule bag on cops – but the profusion of SWAT teams will, some day, be seen as one of the worst derivatives of the War on Terror.  While there are definitely times when some extra tactical oomph is needed, often SWAT teams have become budget lines looking to justify themselves; they’ve kept themselves busy serving warrants that regular cops used to serve just fine, without all the shooting of dogs and tearing up of property (occasionally wrong property)…

…and then, as at Columbine, being so hide-bound by procedure that they can’t actually do any “protecting” and “serving”, or much of anything but running around in all their cool battle rattle, frisking and cuffing victims.

The number of SWAT teams has zoomed in recent years.  The question:  at what point are they less a matter of protecting cops, and more one of showing the citizens who’s boss?

One of the DFL’s more comical devices is calling themselves “the party of the people”.

It’s always been a mixed bag, of course; currently, it’s the party of the people who try to make a career out of giving other people handouts, and the people who can exploit that system for more power for themselves.  Which, admittedly, doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, so I’ll give ’em a pass for not using it.

But still, for “the party of the people”, the DFL is committed to quite a few stances this cycle that are diametrically opposed to what “the people” seem to want.   As a result, they and the astroturf groups that do all of the DFL’s actual messaging these days – Alliance For A Better Minnesota, Take Action MN, Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, the unions and such – are busily cranking out a PR campaign to try to show that a minority, sometimes a teeeeeny tiny little minority, of the people are really a majority.

Here are some of the issues on which the DFL and its astroturf hench-groups don’t want you to believe your lying eyes:

Opposed to Election Integrity – The DFL opposes Voter ID.  The DFL’s Astroturf Cabinet is making a lot of noise to cover the fact that between seventy and eighty percent of Minnesotans believe that voters should have to present some form of ID.  There is no way to do this without lying, of course; Mark Ritchie’s statement that “700,000 voters would be disenfranchised” is baked wind; even if the number is accurate (and it is no more accurate than a Mark Ritchie election), the vast majority of them would be same-day registrants who could fill out provisional ballots while their identities were validated.

And most people know that.  And even if they don’t, they do smell a rat, and think Voter ID just plain makes sense – just as it does when you cash a check, buy beer, rent an apartment, get a job, start a savings account, use a credit card at a store…

…which, apparently, 700,000 Minnesotans are unable to do.

That seems like a problem we’d hear about, doesn’t it?

Right To Work: According to the Survey USA poll from a few weeks back, the vast majority of Minnesotans – 55-24% – support “Right to Work”, which essentially means that unions have to make a case to the worker for their dues; they won’t be required to pay dues to a union.

The Astroturf Cabinet is trying to spin out of the jam two different ways; by comparing “right to work” states to “union” states in terms of straight-up per-capita income (as if New Yorkers earn more than Arkansans solely or even significantly because of unions), and the notion that wages drop in “right to work” states, which is very inconclusive at best, and offset by the fact that “Right to Work” states grow faster (which, again, isn’t entirely because they’re “Right to Work”; they tend to be red states, and they DO grow more).

Stand Your Ground – earlier this week, four Democrats (Tom Saxhaug, Rod Skoe, David Tomassoni and Dan Sparks). broke with the Metrocrat majority to vote with the GOP on the “Stand Your Ground” bill, which would allow self-defense shooters to be innocent until proven guilty while on their property or in their cars.

Some county attorneys and “police chiefs”, apparently unsure that they or their staffs could prove an unjust shooter broke the law, oppose the bill, saying it’d “legalize cold blooded murder”.  The DFL’s handmaidens in the media are, on this issue, apparently too incurious to prod into some of the people they use as sources.

And yet Saxhaug, Tomassoni, Skoe and Sparks no doubt remember ten years ago – the last time the DFL put itself on the opposite side of the Second Amendment movement – it cost the DFL, least outstate, dearly.  The DFL’s opposition to Concealed Carry reform ten years ago played a pivotal role in costing it the House, and in driving the Senate strongly to the right; DFLers played a key role in passing the Minnesota Personal Protection Act. They did it because real Minnesotans supported it, and showed it at the polls.  Nine DFLers crossed over to pass the original bill in 2003; it was much more than that in 2005 when the bill re-passed after it was struck down by a DFL pet judge in 2004.

But the DFL is much more extreme today than ten years ago.   And the right of the law-abiding to defend themselves is anathema to them.  So they’ll oppose Stand Your Ground,  and try to scare people away from it…

…even though the vast majority of informed people support it.

Wilfare – Minnesotans oppose raising their taxes to increase the value of Zygi Wilf’s investment (or, in some cases, oppose raising their own taxes).  But the DFL wants to divert money from the charities that get funding from charitable gambling to, again, give Wilfare to a billionaire whose only real goal is to inflate the value of his investment!

But it’s not being talked about – anywhere.  Least of all in the mainstream media, which profits handsomely from pro sports.

How do you think Minnesotans feel about that?

On issue after issue, the only consensus behind the DFL is the one their minions in the astroturf “Ministry of Truth” manufacture for them, and that their flaks in the media try to portray, provided one pays no attention to the Messinger behind the curtain.

Despite having media appearances in cicada-like increments, I’ll be braving the flurries to be on Marty Owings’ “Capitol Conversations” tonight at 6pm.

You can catch the show here as we discuss the current issues at the Capitol including the constitutional amendments, redistricting, election issues, the Vikings stadiums (would the plural be stadia?) or any other breaking news of interest.

Just before the 2010 elections, Monty Jensen of Brainerd saw what he believed to be extreme irregularities in voting in Crow Wing County; a busload of adults from a group home having their ballots filled out for them by group home workers, he alleged.

Since then, Jensen’s story has been taken up by Eric Shawn of Fox News; it’s shown that at least four adults who were not legally entitled to vote, and in one case had no awareness of political whatsoever, voted at exactly the time Monty Jensen said they did, and has been the subject of a grand jury “probe” that was too fraught with irregularities to be called a “farce” with a straight face.  It’s also brought Jensen and some of his supporters in for some fairly ugly and irresponsible criticism from DFL activists in the Brainerd area as well as some elements of the Minnesota lefty alt-media.

And today, the case – or rather, the “investigation” of the case – is going to be the subject of a complaint by the Minnesota Voters Alliance.

Here’s an outline of the complaint:

Plaintiffs

Plaintiffs are the Minnesota Voters Alliance, the Minnesota Freedom Council, State Representative Sondra Erickson, Montgomery Jenson, Ron Kaus, Jodi Lyn Nelson, and Sharon Stene

Defendants
Mark Ritchie, Minnesota Secretary of State

Lori Swanson, Minnesota Attorney General

Joe Mansky, Ramsey County Elections Manager

John Choi, Ramsey County Attorney

Laureen E. Borden, Crow Wing Auditor-Treasurer

Donald F. Ryan, Crow Wing County Attorney

Minnesota Constitution

One basis for our claims is that Article VII, Section 1 of the Minnesota Constitution requires the state to confirm the eligibility-to-vote of every person it permits to vote, in every election:

Section 1. ELIGIBILITY; PLACE OF VOTING; INELIGIBLE PERSONS. Every person 18 years of age or more who has been a citizen of the United States for three months and who has resided in the precinct for 30 days next preceding an election shall be entitled to vote in that precinct. The place of voting by one otherwise qualified who has changed his residence within 30 days preceding the election shall be prescribed by law. The following persons shall not be entitled or permitted to vote at any election in this state: A person not meeting the above requirements; a person who has been convicted of treason or felony, unless restored to civil rights; a person under guardianship, or a person who is insane or not mentally competent.

The State fails to meet its Constitutional duty to confirm the eligibility of election-day registrants.

In 2008, for example, the state “waived” the eligibility requirements for more than 500,000 election-day registrants by not confirming their eligibility to vote.

The State fails to confirm eligibility of voters even after the election.

As of today, there are still more than 48,000 persons listed in the State’s voter registration database who registered on election-day 2008 and whose eligibility to vote have not been confirmed.

In fact, persons who are known to be positively ineligible to vote had their ballots counted in 2008.

At least 1,500 ineligible felons voted in 2008.

Minnesota has a history of close elections.

The Complaint describes the 1916 presidential election in Minnesota won by 392 votes, the 1962 race for governor won by 91 votes, several state races won by less than 90 votes including a loss by Plaintiff Sondra Erickson by 89 votes in 2008, and the 2001 school board race in which Plaintiff Jody Lyn Nelson lost by one vote.

Both the U.S. and the Minnesota Constitution afford individuals the right to “associate” for political purposes.

When the state waives the eligibility requirements for election-day registrants, it allows unconfirmed, and potentially ineligible, voters to interfere with the constitutional right of the candidate and his or her supporters to come together for political purposes. In effect, the ineligible voter illegally associates himself with the candidate by affecting the candidate’s opportunity to be elected.

Both the U.S. and the Minnesota Constitution afford individuals the right to “due process” by which they can defend their other rights.

The State does not allow eligible voters a means to defend the interference with their right of association created when ineligible persons vote on election day.  Eligible voters have no way to know who is ineligible but the State does have the means and does not deploy it for the purpose of enabling eligible voters the opportunity to challenge those persons who are harming their right to vote.

Both the U.S. and the Minnesota Constitution afford individuals the right to “equal protection” under the law.

Minnesota’s statutes which require the confirmation of eligibility for some voters and which, at the same time, allow other voters to have their ballots counted without being confirmed, treat voters unequally.

The “guardianship” and “not mentally competent” parts of Article Vii, Section 1 are unconstitutional under the U.S. Constitution.

These statements in the Minnesota Constitution that prohibit all persons under guardianship or declared to be mentally incompetent are too broad because they do not afford the person (the ward) the right to challenge having his voting rights stripped away.

The state statutes regarding procedures for guardianships are also constitutionally defective because they violate the ward’s right to due process.

Under current state law, the person under guardianship retains his right to vote unless the court takes it away.  The involvement of the court provides, in principle, the ward with a process (that satisfies his rights under the U.S. Constitution) for challenging any attempt to remove his right to vote.

Notwithstanding, current statutes do not provide for testing the capacity of the ward to understand the nature and effect of voting.  Further, the current statutes do not provide for informing the ward that his right to vote has been abrogated.

This effort, like most anything conservatives do on the subject, has been portrayed as “voter intimidation” by bloggers and others more concerned with upholding DFL dogma than the law.  It’s rubbish, of course; the proximate issue is the exploitation of vulnerable adults.  If a group home forces vulnerable adults to vote, what else will they do?

(Now, if the group home in question were owned by a GOP sympathizer, and the ballot was allegedly being stuffed for, I dunno, Tom Emmer, you just know the story would be different, don’t you?)

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

Progressives claim this election is Conservatives’ last gasp before demographics render them irrelevant forever.

Sounds as if they agree with that awful right-wing hate-monger, Mark Steyn:

Well then, if Liberals will be in charge from now own, this won’t be a problem:

Source: Chart 5-1, page 58, appendix to President Obama’s 2013 budget proposal.

I can divert spending from whiskey and bullets to . . . well, more whiskey, I suppose. Good to know!

I guess Warren Buffet is in for a huge bill.

Not long before the 35W bridge collapsed, the bridge was inspected by an engineering company that gave the bridge – and its ailing gussets – a clean bill of heath.

And we know how that turned out.

Last week, a couple of cables on the Sabo pedestrian/bike bridge snapped, closing the bridge and, for several days, the Ventura Trolley.

The incidents have one thing in common; the inspectors on the old 35W bridge and the engineering consultants on the Sabo were URS Corporation of San Francisco.

What better way to hold an engineering company with this kind of track record accountable than award it a consulting contract for the state’s next big make-work money pit project?

That’s right – Mark Dayton’s Met Council is in negotiations with URS to consult on their Southwest Light Rail line   According to a source in the engineering industry with direct knowledge of the Southwest LRT bidding process, the Met has gone through a round of cuts in selecting engineers, andURS is one of the contenders, if not the finalist, to get the job; the source used the term “final negotiations”.

I sent a request for information to the Met Council over the weekend, specifically asking what stage the Council was at, what firms were in contention, and if URS was one of them.  I got the following response on Sunday afternoon:

The Metropolitan Council is in the midst of evaluating proposals for the preliminary engineering contract for Southwest LRT with a recommendation to the Met Council targeted for mid-March.

I’ll give ’em points for speed.  But it didn’t really answer the question.

Let’s leave aside for a moment whether the SWLRT is a good idea (although it’s not); With the collapse of so much civil and government infrastructure work, local civil engineering firms are hurting; those firms employ a lot of good people.  At least one local firm was counted out of the race to work on the new LRT project, while San Francisco’s URS, with its record of failure on local projects, is apparently still in the running.

Why is the Dayton Administration denying work to local firms in favor of a San Francisco firm with two strikes against it in local civil engineering circles?

I’ll try the Met Council again later today, to see if they want the public to know what firms are in, what firms are out, and where they’re from.

To: Rachel Stassen-Berger, Tom Scheck, Pat Kessler, Bill Salisbury, Tim Pugmire, John Cronan, Tom Leyden, David Brauer, Erik Black, and all of the various other Deans Of The Capitol Press Corps their respective news directors and editors:

From: Mitch Berg, noisome peasant

Re: Huh?

All,

When covering the “Stand Your Ground” bill at the legislature, you all continue to quote the likes of Heather Martens, David Kolb and Jim Backstrom.

And yet everything any of them has ever said on the subject of gun control, the Second Amendment, and above all the consequences of “liberalizing” gun laws for the law abiding has been, always and with no exceptions, not only wrong, but completely the opposite of the truth.  As in, devoid of not just fact, but truth.  Nothing.  Zip.  Bupkes.  Never one iota of fact.

They are “sources” that have burned you, as reporters, every single time you’ve cited them on Second Amendment issues.  No exceptions.

Now, I was a reporter.  Not a great one – serviceable is the word – but even I knew that if you had a source that  never, ever, not once, did anything but discredit your reporting on an issue, you stopped using the source, or at least corroborated everything they said with a reliable one.   Even if I didn’t know better, my editors would usually insist on it.   I mean, if there were three sources that consistently either botched the story or just plain lied to you about, say, the budget or a Senator’s affair, you’d drop ’em off your Rolodex – right?

So is there some exception to this for Second Amendment issues, or are you all that genuinely incurious about the facts on this issue?

I’m genuinely curious.  Have your people call my people.

That is all.

I got this from the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance:

If you do only one thing for gun rights this year, this is it!

The Stand Your Ground bill passed the Minnesota House last year. It overwhelmingly passed the Senate last week. Now the bill is headed to Governor Dayton.

TODAY!

Call Governor Dayton’s office and ask him to sign HR1467, the Stand Your Ground bill.

Metro: 651-201-3400

Toll Free: 800-657-3717

Please take a few minutes to write a real letter, on paper. These are incredibly effective in convincing a politician of how seriously we take an issue.

Governor Mark Dayton

130 State Capitol

75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

St. Paul, MN 55155

Suggested language: “Please sign HF1467, the Stand Your Ground bill, today.”

Send an email: Go to the governor’s web site  and send the same message.

Got a fax machine? Send a fax with the same message to 651-797-1850.

Forward this to a dozen friends and ask them to do the same.

TOMORROW, AND EVERY DAY UNTIL HE SIGNS THE BILL!

Do it again (see above)

You know as well as I do that he’s likely to veto the bill; his strings are being pulled by the likes of “Alliance For A Better Minnesota” and the Metrocrat left. But even Dayton knows he has to defer to the fervor, passion and power of the Second Amendment movement at some point; he ran as a pro-gun, pro-self-defense candidate.

So this has got to have him conflicted.

Good!

And if there’s a bone in his body that resolves conflicts in favor of what the people actually want, then let’s make sure he hears real people, and not the  DFL.

Please write/call today and every day.

More later.

Alleged robber in custody after trying to rob men, dropping gun…

Police said [Cedrick Mitchell, age 39] entered a motel room and asked for pills from the two men inside. When they responded that they didn’t have any, Mitchell took out his gun and told the men “everything you got,” according to the Bradenton Herald.

Mitchell dropped his gun when the men began to fight with him, police say. One of the victims sprayed him with pepper spray and Mitchell ran away, authorities said.

…and then…:

He returned to the motel room minutes later and offered the men $40 in exchange for the gun he dropped, the Herald reported . He was pepper-sprayed in the face again.

Reports that Dakota County Attorney Jim Backstrom has said that this is an example of what will happen if the “Stand Your Ground” law passes are at this time unconfirmed.

It’s also unknown whether Champlin police chief David Kolb has recounted any stories of breaking into hotel rooms when he was a 10 year old boy, and wondering if a kid might get shot for that today.

Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism!

• Ed and I will be doing the voodoo we do from 1-3PM.  Today we’ll be talking redistricting, the presidential race, and the Dems’ curious ideas about the economy..
• Brad Carlson’s show – “The Closer” – is on from 1-3 on Sunday.   He’ll be talking with Rep. Bachmann, too; tune in!
• The King Banaian Show! – King is on AM1570, Business Radio for the Twin Cities!  Join him from 9-11 every Saturday!

(All times Central)

So tune in to all six hours of the Northern Alliance Radio Network, the Twin Cities’ media’s sole guardians of sanity. You have so many options:

• AM1280 in the Metro
• streaming at AM1280’s Website,
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• UStream video and chat (at HotAir.com or at UStream) .
• New – send us an SMS text message – 651-243-0390
• Good ol’ telephone – 651-289-4488!
• Podcasts are now available on the AM1280 page!  (Ed and I are #2 – Brad is #3).
• And make sure you fan us on our new Facebook page!

Join us!

To:  Chief Barney Fife, Dwight Schrute, Frank Burns, David Kolb, Champlin Police Department
From: Mitch Berg, Mere Peasant.
Re:  Do They Only GIve You One Bullet?

Chief Kolb – one of the Metro area DFL’s pet cops – had to say in testifying before the Senate’s bipartisan vote in favor of Tony Cornish’s “Stand Your Ground” bill yesterday:

“This bill provides a loophole for a defense of what I would call cold-blooded murder,” said Champlin Police Chief David Kolb of the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association.

Kolb recounted being 10 years old and sneaking onto a neighbor’s south Minneapolis property to steal apples from a tree.

Based on the proposal, “now the property owner can use force, and even deadly force, against that 10-year-old apple thief,” Kolb said. “You can see the disconnect here with reality.”

Indeed, Chief Kolb, we can.  The disconnect with reality is like a rhetorical taser to the groin..

Would that 10 year old Davie Kolb have been a “Reasonable Threat of Death or Substantial Bodily Harm” to that property owner – where “Reasonable” means “a jury would buy it?”  If someone in Champlin shot a ten year old kid who was stealing apples, would the prosecution today hinge on the failure to retreat?  Or perhaps the fact that the property owner was under no lethal threat whatsoever, and that lethal force was utterly unjustified?  How, precisely, would that change with the passage of Cornish’s law?

Would that 10 year old Kolb lad’s actions have justified, to that reasonable cop, prosecutor and juror, the use of lethal force, notwithstanding the exact location of the incident?

If so, then why are you alive, not to mention a cop, today?

If not, then I think the citizens of Champlin might wanna do a quick review of their chief of police’s investigative skills, knowledge of the law, and – given his apparent willingness to misrepresent the law when the metro DFL asks him to – his priorities..

That is all.

MBerg

(Via regular commenterTerry)

Don’t forget – tomorrow night is the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers Winter Fiesta!

Join us at Ol’ Mexico in Roseville tomorrow night at 7PM until people pack up and head out (usually 11ish).  And if you’d be so kind, toss us an RSVP here.  It’s looking like a good turnout so far.

The party is in the Courtyard room (not the same room we were in last time) at Ol’ Mexico in Roseville, on Lexington just north of Larpenteur.

View Larger Map

Hope to see you there!

To: Governor Dayton
From: Mitch Berg
Re: Stand Your Ground Bill

Governor Dayton,

Do you remember saying this, two years ago?

“I have two loaded .357 Magnum pistols in my home right now in a lock box,” DFL candidate Mark Dayton told a crowd gathered Saturday at Game Fair, a hunting and fishing expo in Anoka. “I have a 9mm pistol at home. I have a twelve-gauge shotgun at home.”

You’re not a great politician, but you’re not stupid.  You were campaigning for governor, outstate, at the Game Fair.  You remember Ann Wynia; it was the gun vote the sank her and gave us six years of Senator Rod Grams. You know that gun control issues are a graveyard for DFL pols outstate – and not just “sportsman’s” issues, either; you remember the outstate DFL legislators that got sent packing in 2000 and 2002 for opposing Concealed Carry reform.  And you needed to bounce back from your lifetime “D” rating from the National Rifle Association.

So you went all tactical on us.

So your next steps after yesterdays’ resounding passage of the “Stand Your Ground Bill in the Senate seems pretty clear:

The Senate passed the bill Thursday with bipartisan support in a 40-23 [almost veto-proof…] vote after heated debate.

The bill gives gun owners significantly more latitude to use deadly force for self defense. The bill creates a presumption that anyone who uses deadly force while in a home or dwelling does so believing themselves in danger of harm or death. It expands the definition of dwelling to also mean a hotel room, tent, car or boat.

It also strengthens Minnesota’s “Castle Doctrine” law – which supposedly exempts one from having to retreat in their own home, but which has been overridden a number of times in Minnesota  courts.

The usual suspects – Lefty astroturf anti-gun groups and “law enforcement groups”, inevitably groups inextricably tied with metro government – are making the usual bleating sounds:

Supporters of the bill say it will increase personal protection. But opponents say it would actually threaten public safety and increase the risks faced by law enforcement officers.

There are 17 states with “Stand Your Ground” Laws, including such conservative bastions as New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Wisconsin.  There has been no “threat” to anyone’s safety that didn’t have it coming.

No, as the MPR article notes, there is one reason that “law enforcement” – at the institutional level – doesn’t like the bill:

The bill also shifts the burden of proof in self-defense cases from the defense to the prosecution, and would no longer require a person to retreat to avoid a perceived threat.

Law enforcement – especially county attorneys like Jim Backstrom – love it when the law does their work for them.  

And so they claim – as I noted – that shooting where the shooter was not in fear of death or great bodily harm, where lethal force was not justified, and/or was a willing participant, will be harder to prove wrongful because there’s…no duty to retreat before committing a crime?

Huh?

These cops and lawyers think all of us are stupid.

Still, they flak away:

Several Senate Democrats echoed that concern. DFL Sen. John Harrington, who previously served as the police chief in St. Paul, said state law already provides Minnesotans the right to protect themselves.

“This bill makes it sound like home invasions are an everyday occurrence, when in fact they are extremely rare,” Harrington said. “And on those rare occasions when they do happen, our current law allows the homeowner to take appropriate and reasonable action to defend themselves.”

Right, Chief Harrington.  With the occasional diversion into Sartreian hell.  Gotta break some eggs to make an omelet, right?

And there are signs, Mr. Governor, that their illogic has gotten to you:

Dayton told the House author he would wait the full three days before acting on the bill, once it lands on his desk.

“I went to the funeral of a courageous police officer in Lake City just a couple of weeks ago, Shawn Schneider — and his widow and three children,” Schneider [sic] said. “I don’t want to do that again, and I don’t want to do anything that they believe based on their considerable experience is going to put their lives at greater risk.”

Schneider died after he was shot responding to a domestic dispute call.

It’s a sad story – which helps to cover up, no doubt, the fact that Schneider’s killer was not acting in self-defense; had he not killed himself, there’d have been no question that he was a murderer.  Any claim that the killer was acting in self-defense would have gotten laughed out of court.

Even the dumbest prosecutor and most thick-necked burned-out cop gets this.  Until it’s time to turn up at the capitol and pimp for gun control, anyway.

Anyway, Governor Dayton – veto it.  I dare you.  Start the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance mailing list humming to outstate shooters on both sides of the aisle – among the most passionate, dedicated activists you’ve ever seen.  Sign the political death warrants of every DFL politician outside the Metro and Duluth.   Get all of Minnesota’s shooters – who mobilized across party lines ten years ago to defeat you and the people who pull your strings, and can do it again – riled up.

Or do the right thing and sign it.

Your call.

That is all.

Thank you, anonymous preliterate wannabe-class-warrior union droog, whoever you were…

In fact, the most confrontational moment came when Rep. Banaian was answering another right-to-work question. Jerry Albertine interrupted, saying “Don’t sit there with your hairspray and your tie, you’ve never worked labor, and say you know what the unions are about.”

…for giving Learned Foot the best straight line he’s had all year:

Heh.

Did you know Minnesota had a Lieutenant Governor?

Gotta confess, I’d pretty much forgotten about Yvette Prosser Sorum.  A long-time legislator from Duluth, she served Governor Dayton’s need for a politician with ovaries and a relentlessly party-line record, to try to shore up DFL support after defying the DFL endorsement process and beating Margaret Anderson-Kelliher.

Wait – it’s Yvonne Prettner Solon?  Whew.  That coulda been embarrassing.

But not as embarrassing as this bit here, where our “Lieutenant Govenror” tries to talk economics:

Lt. Gov. Yvonne Prettner Solon said the governor’s office wants all who are eligible to enroll in the program, which not only ensures Minnesotans have enough to eat and be healthy, but also helps the state’s economy.

“Every dollar of use of the SNAP program, there’s $1.73 that’s generated for our economy, which helps our grocery stores,” Prettner Solon said. “It helps our farmers. It helps everybody along the food supply chain.”

That’s right – food stamps help the economy!

Because the money that goes into food stamps comes from unicorns, brought to us in golden boxes.

It’s not like anyone had to pay for those food stamps (and the administrators who , well, administrate them) out of money taken from what they or their business had earned, right?

Well, not in DFL world, anyway.

This is a DFLer’s education at work.

Charter School parents:  brace yourselves.  The teachers unions and their minions in academia and the non-profit world are getting ready for another onslaught against your kids’ lifeboats.

MPR runs R a report saying charter schools are “charter schools more segregated, underperforming” compared to the factory schools:

The Twin Cities area’s 30,000 charter school students score 7.5 percentage points lower on math testing and 4.4 percent lower on reading tests than students at traditional public schools, according to the report from the University of Minnesota Law School’s Institute on Race and Poverty.

“If you look at the total group, they’re underperforming the public schools significantly and a lot of the ones who are serving the poorest kids are not only doing very badly, but not lasting very long,” said Myron Orfield, the institute’s director.

For starters – the presence of Myron Orfield means the report is a political, not legal or academic, effort.

But I’ll ask them the same questions I do every single time these sorts of “studies” come up:  did the “study” control for the fact that so many students, especially in high school come to charter schools after failing, and being utterly failed, at the traditional factory schools?

Did it compare their performance at their traditional and charter schools?

Diid the “study” attempt to show aggregate change of individual students over time as they transitioned from public to charter schools?

Eugene Piccolo of the MInnesota Association of Charter Schools agrees:

Pioccolo would like to see more emphasis on studying the progress individual students make as they navigate their way through a charter school education.

Here’s the other bit where these “studies” confuse cause and effect:

The U of M’s report also shows charter schools are becoming more segregated.

“There’s a continual rapid growth of charter schools and the single-race white charter schools are growing fast but they’re all continuing to grow very fast,” Orfield said.

That’s just inflammatory stupidity.

There is no such thing as a “single-race white charter school”.  Oh, a charter school in Glenwood will likely be mostly white, but the real growth is in the mostly-minority charter schools in the inner city; the vast majority of charter schools students in Minneapolis and Saint Paul are black, Asian, Latino or Native American.

And since people have to make an effort to go to a charter school – they aren’t assigned by the school district – it’s not a matter of anyone’s official discrimination; it’s because the parents are disgusted with the fourth rate education they get from Myron Orfiield’s buddies in the educational-industrial complex.

These “studies” are worthless for purposes of assessing education – they don’t pretend to do anything more than tie average test scores to buildings.

What they are is the opening shots in the DFL/media/union (pardon the redundancy) effort to try to roll back school choice.

So if you’re a black, asian, latino or native parent in the Twin Cities – why the hell do you keep voting DFL?   All they want to do is stuff your kids back into their public schools and shut them, and you, up.

They and their minions are a gun pointed at your kids’ futures.

There are a lot of stupid reasons to oppose Tony Cornish’s “Stand Your Ground” bill; most of them are outright lies, as with pretty much anything Dakota County Attorney Jim Backstrom has written on the subject.

You rarely get the one slightly less-dumb question: “is there any real need for this bill?”  I’ve had a few earnest and not-unintelligent lefties ask over the years.  “Can you name a single case of an otherwise law-abiding shooter that’s in jail strictly because they didn’t retreat enough to satisfy a county attorney?”

There’ve been a few examples in Minnesota over the years – but none quite as dramatic as  this perversion of “justice” in Iowa that’s just gotten “resolved”< after a fashion.  Jay Lewis – an Afro-American man from West Des Moines – shot a man who attacked him

A former security guard and law enforcement officer, Lewis also is a hunter and gun collector and came to Iowa with a permit to carry a concealed weapon…Ludwick, a former soldier and convicted felon, was driving four people home from a Halloween party. Documents say Ludwick slowed; Lewis passed him. Ludwick sped up, and the cars raced down 11th Street until they came to Regency Woods. They collided when Lewis, in front and on the right, started to turn left.

Lewis said Ludwick and a passenger, Justin Lossner, got out of the Taurus and began punching the Mustang’s windows.

They backed off when Lewis pulled out his .380-caliber pistol. But they came back.

Lewis said he was outside his car, evaluating its damage, when he caught Ludwick and Lossner trying to sneak up on him from two different directions.

There’s one mistake, of course; it behooves one to maintain a zen-like calm when you’re carrying. If the story went as the article says it did, and had it occurred in Minnesota, Lewis might be lucky he didn’t get dinged for being a willing participant.

But that’s irrelevant – as we’ll see in a bit:

The recording of a 911 call made by Lewis begins with Lewis yelling at the two to “just stay where you are. Get back! Get back! I’m going to start shooting!”

There are exchanges of profanities while Lewis explains the situation to a police dispatcher. Then, “Get away from me. Get away from me!” And a bang.

Ludwick was shot, Lewis said, when Ludwick turned away as if to retreat, then spun back and charged. Records say the bullet hit Ludwick in his chest above the right pectoral muscle, then tore through his right bicep.

Now, here’s the important part; a jury backed him up:

Jurors found Lewis’ actions entirely appropriate.

“He gave them fair warning,” jury forewoman Nancy Alberts said. “Normally, anybody that would pull a gun on someone, you would think that they would stop. … That wasn’t the case here. You could clearly hear on the 911 call where he warned Mr. Ludwick.”

Ludwick, who had a blood-alcohol level of 0.189 when tested at the hospital that night, did not return phone calls requesting comment. Court records show his history includes multiple convictions for felony theft.

So here’s the situation so far:  after an altercation on the road, two drunk men attacked Lewis. damaging his car (the article didn’t note if the car was driveable).  Lewis drew, and when the two perps kept attacking him, fired, wounding the guy.

No, it’s even more ludicrous than that (emphasis added):

West Des Moines police arrested Lewis for failing to back off and avoid the gunplay. He was charged with two counts of intimidation with a dangerous weapon and one of going armed with intent.

And if he’d left, would they have booked him for “leaving the scene?”  And how on earth did they show “intent?”

The initial bail asked Lewis to post $225,000 cash.

Lewis, who made $32,359 a year at the IRS, didn’t have the money. So he sat in jail.

In other words, for a shooting that was in every way completely justified except for failing to run away (the article doesn’t tell us if he could have driven – away from the scene of an accident with significant damage, mind you), but in which a pencil-necked county attorney, working in a warm, well-lit office surrounded by deputies and metal detectors, decided that he should have found some way to run away from two attackers.

He lost his apartment (not for failure to pay, but because the case, and the attendant publicity, defamed him with his landlord to the point where he got evicted essentially on a morals clause) and his job.  His landlord filed for eviction while he was in jail; the court system, in all its passive-aggressive glory, didn’t notify him of the action until all of his property was sitting out on his curb, where the deputies confiscated his small weapons collection, and his neighbors confiscated the rest of his property.

Which disqualified him from being released early, as a first-time offender with a job and therefore a low flight risk, because – wait for it – he had no place to go!

So for 112 days, he languished in jail – due to a bitchy decision by a bitchy county attorney, the passive-aggression of the county court system and his landlord, and being too poor to post $20,000+ in bail.  His life was ruined.

And what happened?

Prosecutors eventually dropped most of the charges. Trial on the sole remaining count, reckless use of a firearm causing injury, began on Feb. 6. and ended late on Feb. 8.

It was over early the following morning.

Let’s reiterate that; prosecutors – working in safe, warm, comfy environments with nobody attacking them – took their sweet time to decide maaaaayabe they didn’t have a case; they lost the one charge they ended up bringing to trial.

Not for shooting, or even injuring, the attacker; that was never in legal question.  Merely for failing to run away from the accident scene and his car, being chased by 2-4 angry men.

A man’s freedom, and entire life, have been destroyed over a couple of lawyers’ bobbleheaded passive-aggressive canoodling over an abstruse legalistic quibble over whether he ran away fast enough.

Polk County Attorney John Sarcone said that he accepted the jury’s verdict but that the case deserved to go to trial because Lewis’ actions raised a sufficient number of questions.

“We just don’t allow people to go shoot people,” he said. “Using deadly force is a last resort. It shouldn’t be the first resort.”

Which is not just a strawman, but a stupid one; at no point did anyone suggest it was Lewis’ first action.

What Lewis’ case shows is that current law works, [Polk County Attorney] Sarcone said: “I don’t know why people are afraid of jury trials. I’m not.”

I had to sit back and let my brain try to wrap itself around the arrogance, presumption and stupidity of that question.

Not just in the “of course you’re not afraid, it’s your job” sense of the term.  More like “I’ll just bet you’re not, asshole!  You have all the taxpayer money in the world to fight your cases; I, citizen, might be lucky to make bail, much less fight against your entire department and all its resources…

…over a case that wasn’t about the rightfulness of the shooting at all – merely about whether I should have run away, and run away fast enough to satisfy you”.

I’m less worried about Mr. Lewis’ gun than I am about prosecutors like Jim Backstrom’s lying demigoguery or Sarcone’s legal onanism.

That’s why we need Rep. Cornish’s bill.

Have you called your Senator yet?  Maybe a few of ’em?  If not, why not?

(And I know it makes me a bad person, but whenever I hear prosecutors look at cases like this and say “the system worked”, I really really do want to see them go through a perverse miscarriage of justice themselves, just to see how the rest of us live).

Can you imagine a “White People For Romney” group?

No?

Because it’d be roundly condemned on all sides of the aisle, right?

Just remember – “Republicans and conservatives…

…are obsessed with race”.

No, keep saying it!

Remember – the only reason not to vote for a utopian socialist who believes in radically transforming American society and the economy, who has a three year record of failure and is the worst president of your lifetime is…because he’s black.

No other reason could possibly exist!

Between 70% and 80% of Minnesota voters favor the Voter ID proposal.

Some of us favor it because it’s the first step in a series of election reforms that will help us ensure that our election system in fact has integrity; there are increasingly strong suspicions that the election system in Minnesota, with its reports of fraudulent election-day un-identified vouched registrations (among other abuses), lacks that integrity.

Others have the common sense to know that 32 states currently require some degree of voter ID, and elections work just fine; the elderly and students register and vote, just like adults (significantly, most of the non-ID states are Democrat, including states renowned for dirty elections, like Illinois, New York, New Jersey and California)

But for whatever reason, Minnesota voters overwhelmingly favor the measure.  Even in the most “conservative” poll on the subject, the Survey USA poll which showed a 71-23 margin of support overall, the measure even wins among declared liberals, 35-32.

So the anti-ID crowd is getting desperate.

And to paraphrase Gandhi, when you’re fighting the DFL machine on a subject like this, first they ignore you.

Then they mock you.

And  then they call you a racist.

The site was sponsored – apparently – by “Take Action Minnesota”, an astroturf group thats is basically what all of the various non-profit Wellstone cults became over the last decade or so.

And – oboy.  A black guy in a striped suit.  Not good.  Tone deaf.  Politically-incorrect.

And, in the special little world of the liberal astroturf group, I suppose it,  all by itself, invalidates the entire move to bring integrity back to our voting system.

BAD MN Majority.

MN Majority came out with another – which also aroused TakeAction’s drearily predictable ire:

Lest you think all TakeActionMN does is do screenshots, there was some writing and stuff too:

This image is on a Minnesota Majority website. It is trying to scare us into changing our state constitution to require a photo ID to vote. Photo ID would restrict voting rights for over half a million Minnesotans – especially people of color. Photo ID is voter suppression. And it stops here.

I’m always puzzled by the notion that requiring an ID to vote – like we require them for lesser “rights” like cashing a check, using a credit card, setting up a bank account, getting a Social Security Card, getting a copy of your birth certificate, buying Sudafed, getting into a bar, buying a firearm or ammunition, buying a car, taking out a loan, dropping your kids off and picking them up at drop-in daycare, buy alcohol or cigarettes, apply for welfare, food stamps or any sort of medical assistance, rent an apartment, get admitted to a hospital, or get a marriage license – “disenfranchises” anyone, much less ten percent of all Minnesotans, as “Take Action MN” claims.   Or, for that matter, that VoterID infringes, in and of itself, on the right to vote.  It doesn’t; it merely means you need an ID to do it.

Indeed, once you get past cartoon pratfalls, it’s TakeAction that makes the genuinely racist claim – the ludicrous and frankly offensive notion that ten percent of Minneostans – apparently, all minorities, students and the elderly, although nobody has any idea where they got that number, and next month it could very well be “eleventy-teen percent” and nobody will say “boo”.   But to me, their claims sound a lot like “minorities and people of color are too dumb to keep track of their paperwork and ID cards”.

I’m sure that’s not what they meant.

At any rate – we know how Gandhi’s bromide ends; “Then you win”.

TakeAction and the rest of the Minnesota astroturf cult are getting increasingly desperate on this issue, as well as the other big wedge issue likely headed for the ballot this fall, an amendment to make Minnesota a Right to Work state.  Without fraudulent votes and endless union money, the DFL’s position in Minnesota will get a lot weaker.

And that’s a big win for everyone, no matter what your race, ethnicity, or relentless political correctness.

“So how DO they get cars out of the lake when they go through the ice?”

Well, whaddya know?

I got this from the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance this morning; Tony Cornish’s “Stand Your Ground” bill comes up for debate in the Senate tomorrow.

I’m going to start with the call to action, and let you read the rest of it later.

Here’s What We Need To Do:  If you are a Minnesotan who supports the human right of self-defense, here’s where it starts:

• Call Your Senator – Or send them a snail mail.  Or at the very least, an email. Here’s a full list.  Tell them, politely and concisely, that you support the human right of self-defense, and that you want them to support SF1357.  For the Republicans, remember – we shooters supported the GOP in 2010; they need to earn that support.  For Democrats outside the Metro, remind them how many shooters are in their district (lots!).   For Metrocrats?  Call anyway.  And then call a real Senator.
• Join the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance – GOCRA is the single best source of information on Minnesota gun issues there is.  They were fighting for Minnesotans’ gun rights long before most Minnesotans knew it was cool.  And they have been among the most effective grass-roots (as in real grass-roots) political groups anywhere.  And it’s because of people like us.  So join the group.

What’s So Important About The Bill? – This is from Andrew Rothman at GOCRA:

HF1467/SF1357 Summary

HF1467/SF1357, the Defense of Dwelling and Person Act of 2011, brings “Stand Your Ground” protections to Minnesota, restores the presumption that a person using self defense is innocent until proven guilty, enhances Castle Doctrine, prevents the state from seizing guns during an emergency (remember Hurricane Katrina?), improves carry reciprocity with other states and requires the government to do its job to serve law-abiding citizens.

The full text of the bill can be found here: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bin/bldbill.php?bill=H1467.2.html&session=ls87

Here’s some more detail about the bill:

Adds Stand Your Ground

HF1467 brings “Stand Your Ground” protections to Minnesota, removing the requirement that an intended victim of violent crime must retreat from a place where he has a right to be before using deadly force in self defense.

Enhances Castle Doctrine

The bill also strengthens Minnesota’s “Castle Doctrine,” clarifying when and under what circumstances individuals can legally use deadly force to protect themselves in their homes and vehicles. In addition, it creates a presumption that, when faced with an apparent home invasion, carjacking or kidnapping attempt, a person may use deadly force in self defense.

Adds Universal Carry Permit Acceptance

Of particular interest to carry permit holders, the final article of the bill updates our carry permit reciprocity standards, allowing people holding carry permits from any other state to carry in Minnesota (under Minnesota law, of course). This should result in a large increase in the number of states where Minnesota permit holders can carry, since many states allow other states’ permit holders to carry on a reciprocal basis.

Prevents Gun Seizures During a State of Emergency

Taking a lesson from the problems in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, the bill also bans government agencies from seizing guns or ammo, revoking permits to purchase or carry, closing gun shops, or otherwise suspending our constitutional rights during a civil emergency — or at any other time. It also prohibits law enforcement officers from seizing a person’s gun, unless the person is arrested, or the gun is evidence of a crime.

Enhances Purchase Permit Rights

The bill also borrows a page from the Permit to Carry law, providing a more robust appeal process for denied purchase permits, and requiring that police chiefs and sheriffs whose purchase permit denials are overturned must pay the applicants’ legal costs.

This important stuff.

Oh, yeah – one more thing:  We shooters used to be really, really good at focusing our votes.  When Concealed Carry Reform was wending its way through the legislature for those nine long sessions (1995 through 2003), we voted a lot of soft-on-guns outstate legislators out of office; literally, we shooters (organized by GOCRA), swung Minnesota politics.

We need to do it again.  Minnesota’s anti-gun crowd is getting restless. We need to slap them down at the ballot box.  Anti-gun legislators – and other elected officials – need to find out how serious we are by being sent into political retirement.  Which is another reason to please, please join GOCRA.