Mark Dayton, 2010, goes all tactical on an outstate audience while pimping for that outstate vote:

“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.”

Mark Dayton in 2011, acting like a Democrat with a lifetime “D” rating from the NRA:

Earlier in the day, by a voice vote, members of the House Judiciary Committee approved the bill, the first showdown of the legislative session over gun rights. Having now passed two committees, the bill is on its way to the full House.

The committee hearing was a low-key rerun of a separate one held last week that was jammed with supporters of the bill, who call it the “Stand Your Ground” measure, and opponents, who call it the “Shoot First” bill.

(I hope at least one supporter asked at least one of the antis “what do you think happens when you “Shoot Second” in a life-or-death situation?”)

Gun control advocates and organizations representing the state’s police chiefs, sheriffs and officers reiterated their opposition to the bill, which, they say, could endanger their members. “To us, this is a huge officer safety issue,” said Dennis Flaherty, executive director of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association.

Dayton, himself a gun owner, said he will “listen carefully to the concerns of the law enforcement community.”

Dayton “listened to the concerns of law enforcement” in the same sense as he “listened to the concerns of grassroots liberals” at “Alliance for a Better Minnesota“.    The organizations “representing” the cops are, almost without exception, pro-DFL lobbying groups, run by cops that must, as a matter of survival, suck up to the Metro DFL mayors and city councils to push their agendas.

He added: “I understand and believe that somebody has a right, if somebody enters their home and is threatening their spouse or their children or themselves, to take preventive action, and I recognize the police are not going to always be able to be on the scene immediately. I’m sympathetic to those concerns, but this goes way beyond that.”

Um…how?

(Seriously.  Expect lots of DFLers to repeat the line “this goes way beyond that” – because that’s what DFLers do, repeat the lines their superiors tell them to use.  Ask them.  They never, ever have an answer).

Rep. Tony Cornish, R-Good Thunder, the bill’s sponsor, repeated his contention that “we like to call it the self-defense bill — it attempts to give more latitude to the homeowner.”

Brushing aside opponents’ contention that the change in the law would lead to an increasing number of dead trespassers, Cornish said it “doesn’t allow you to shoot someone toilet-papering your tree.”

The bill would expand what is known as the Castle Doctrine and has long been close to the top of the wish list for gun rights supporters, who say they should have no obligation to flee an attacker…

…while on their own property.

Although DFL majorities have been able to block it in recent years, it’s expected to face few obstacles in this session’s Republican-dominated Legislature.

Other than from Republicans who think that “Stand Your Ground” is a negotiating chit.

I don’t think that’ll work.

Republicans (and outstate DFLers), remember; we gunnies know who the real enemy is.  But we have looooong memories. We remember, in particular, the 1980’s and 1990’s, when our endless support was answered with…not much in the way of legislative progress.

We did our waiting, long before most of you were in office.