Just The Facts

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Remember – the way to tell when “progressives” are lying about gun laws is “check to see if their lips are moving”.

Since we have hearings this afternoon, and there wil likely be a floor vote soon, it”ll be good to get clear on a couple of the “points” in the left’s “argument” against the Stand  Your Ground bill:

The Bill Does: Adds “Stand Your Ground” to Minnesota’s self-defense law. It removes  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.

The Bill Does Not: Allow people to shoot people who wander onto their property.  While the unclear and capricious “duty to retreat” is eliminated, the requirement that lethal force be reasonable, and the fear of death or great bodily harm be legitimate, do not change.  This is a point that Twin Cities’ “progressives” have been playing fast and loose.  Read: Lying.

The Bill Does: Enhance the “Castle Doctrine”. The proposal clarifies when and under what circumstances individuals can legally use deadly force to protect themselves in their homes and vehicles. It also creates a presumption that, when faced with an apparent home invasion, carjacking or kidnapping attempt, a person may use deadly force in self defense.

The Bill Does Not: Allow people to shoot people for trivial reasons.  “Progressives” want you to believe that the bill will allow you to shoot people who “give you the stink eye”.  They say this because lies are all they have.

The Bill Does: Prevent Gun Seizures During States of Emergency. It bans government agencies from seizing guns or ammo, revoking permits to purchase or carry, closing gun shops, or otherwise suspending our constitutional rights during civil emergencies. It also prohibits law enforcement officers from seizing a person’s gun (unless the person is arrested, and the gun is evidence of a crime).

The Bill Does Not: Give people a “get out of jail free card” for killing people when self-defense is not justified.

The Bill Does: Improve State Background Checks.  It requires the Minnesota Department of Human Services and state courts to make their background check records available electronically to authorized agencies, including the National Instant Background Check system (NICS), the “instant background check” database that controls handgun sales nationwide.  This process was supposed to have been in place 16 years ago – that’s your bureaucracy at work!  It should reduce purchasing delays and ensure that state and federal checks produce the same results.

The Bill Does Not: Make it easier to kill people in domestic arguments.  Just the opposite.

What The Bill Does: Create 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.  Y’know – requires them to follow the law, rather than their bureaucratic whim.

The Bill Does Not: Give gun owners the right to kill deputies and cops that irritate them.  No “progressive” has suggested it would – yet – but you know those wacky “progressives”; it won’t take ’em long.

The Bill Does: Adds Universal Carry Permit Acceptance.  It updates Minnesota’s carry permit reciprocity standards, allowing people holding carry permits from any other state to carry in Minnesota (subject to Minnesota’s laws). 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.

The Bill Does Not: Let anyone kill anyone for trivial reasons.  Period.  End of sentence.  Anyone who says otherwise is lying.

The Bill Does: Give self-defense shooters the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven.  Currently, self-defense shooters must, in effect, say “yes, I’m guilty, but here’s my excuse” – a profound legal risk that not even serial killers face.

That’s really all that matters.

3 thoughts on “Just The Facts”

  1. At the Federal level, Michael Bloomberg and his Mayors Against Guns (or whatever the hell the name of his subversive group that is pushing to screw with our Second Amendment rights is called), is pushing for BATFE to require gun dealers to report anyone that buys more than one semi-auto rifle a week to them.

    Public hearings will be coming up shortly so brief yourselves on this federal gun grab and let your elected officials know that you oppose it and watch for the public hearing/comment period. I will attempt to keep all of you updated as I learn more.

    In th

  2. Bloomer’s group is Mayors against illegal guns. It’s members are generally the same politicians and appointed Police Chiefs who oppose all gun ownership plus a few fools who think that it only pertains to guns that are already illegal.

    I haven’t heard any more about Bloomers making a run as an Indy. I don’t think he could gather any momentum outside of the NE and that would just suck electoral votes from the “Won” so I don’t think he is running.

  3. What The Bill Does: Create 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. Y’know – requires them to follow the law, rather than their bureaucratic whim.
    That was true at the time you wrote that, Mitch; but it was stripped out, on a unanimous vote, at the Friday hearing. Now, the language reads that a judge “may” (rather than “must” or “shall”) order costs. They already could, and — as far as I know — simply don’t, largely because few people denied or delayed on a purchase permit can come up with several thousand in legal fees on the off chance that the judge will decide to punish the PD. What it would change — and this is all to the good — is that purchase permits would now be valid for five years, instead of one, and, unlike a previous House version of the bill, would not strip out the legal protection given to a private seller who sells a gun to somebody with a purchase permit who ends up doing Something Bad.

    The Bill Does: Adds Universal Carry Permit Acceptance. It updates Minnesota’s carry permit reciprocity standards, allowing people holding carry permits from any other state to carry in Minnesota (subject to Minnesota’s laws). 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.

    Again, that was utterly true when you wrote it, but that language, too, was neutered by the Senate committee on Friday.

    Now, it’s universal carry permit acceptance for everybody except Minnesotans.

    It probably would get MN permits acceptance in Colorado (pretty much guaranteed, and would be the only way that Minnesotans can carry in CO) and North Dakota, and perhaps a few others. Not, by the way, Texas or North Carolina, and probably not Washington State.

    But the Limmer amendment — again, approved unanimously by the committee on Friday — strips out the present acceptance of carry permits issued by any other states for Minnesotans, the theory being, I suppose, that what’s good enough to allow a Florida resident to carry in Minnesota isn’t good enough for a Minnesotan. It is, granted, a bit of “inside baseball”, but the Utah permit has been used, for eight years, as the back door around the Bob Fletcher bad sheriff problem, for people who have good reason to fear (like, say, because it’s happened to them) that they’ll be arbitrarily and capriciously denied a carry permit by their local sheriff, or who wanted to spend about $65 on a carry permit, rather than the $100 that most MN sheriffs charge.

    Utah closed the safety valve on that last year; they will now issue outstate permits to Wisconsites (until Wisconsin passes their own carry law), say, but not to Minnesotans who don’t already have a MN carry permit.

    This amendment (should the bill become law) not only closes the safety valve, but welds it shut, so that if Florida permits (the most widely accepted; $117 for a seven-year permit) are accepted here, those Minnesotans who want to carry in, say, Texas or North Carolina will still have to get the Florida or Utah permit . . . in addition to the Minnesota one. (They could, of course, get a Pennsylvania permit for $19 from the Centre County sheriff — but PA changed their law, last year, requiring applicants to appear in person to apply, which makes that $19 permit kind of expensive, what with at least two days on the road, in addition to the nineteen bucks.)

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