Michael Paymar is back.
His attempt to make the law-abiding gun owner pay for the Newtown Massacre squibbed in the last session; even his own party deserted his effort; even some sensible DFLers like Rep. Hilstrom threw Paymar and his metrocrat extremists under the bus.
But he and his buddies in the mainstream media are trying a different tack; around the time his bills bogged down amid party defections and an avalanche of public opposition, Paymar and the metrocrat extremists started a whispering campaign that the legislators were “intimidated” by the number of citizens who showed up at the hearings with firearms – legally, naturally (the law allows people to carry in the Capitol complex if they are legal carry permittees and they notify the head of Capitol security).
Of course, it is an objective fact that Paymar is vastly safer in a room full of carry permittees – who’ve passed background checks and completed training in the subject – than he’d be in a room full of, well, DFLers. Or any other private citizen. Because it’s an objective fact that carry permittees, nationwide and in Minnesota, are a couple of orders of magnitude less likely to commit any crime than the general public are.
But Paymar wants to continue the slander of his fellow citizen; he’s authoring a bill for the next session that’d clamp down on citizens carrying in the Capitol complex.
It’s not just a solution in search of a problem, of course; it’s a bitchy little slap at the law-abiding citizen.
I can’t wait until he’s in the minority again.
It’s not a completely idiotic concept, that legislators might be intimidated by spectators while in session. Taking the idea a step further:
-no armed policemen allowed in the room when legislation that might affect them is debated (wages, local government aid, public employee pensions or union rights, etc). And no armed police to testify, e.g. Scott Knight.
-no burly union members allowed in the room when legislation that might affect them is debated (union contracts, organized daycare, pensions).
-no New Black Panthers allowed in the room when civil rights are debated.
-no Muslims allowed in the room when terrorist security is discussed.
Well that’s logical, isn’t it? If legislators are intimidated because sane, law-abiding adults come to watch them work, we should ban the spectators, right?
And can we please ban helga-braid wearing, drum-beating morons from the Capitol as well?
Sadly, he is my representative. In every election, I have voted for his opponent.
Is Paymer so craven as to imagine that a squad of carry-permit holders is going to draw down on him? Is it because he thinks that that is the type of thing his side would do?
Now, what would be intimidating is if someone in the group were to loudly say, “Ready. Aim.” Oh, never mind, freedom of speech does not include the right to yell “Fire” in a crowded legislative chamber.
Unless, of course, there really was a fire. Then it is a moral imperative to yell “Fire!”
How about a complete “No Gun Zone” in and around the capitol? Literally no guns, including sworn and non-sworn capitol security. The only exception would be local law enforcement officers, but only when they were called in to handle some type of a problem on the premises.
This would be compeltely in keeping with Paymar, Uncle Junior, and the rest of the Martens gang’s vision of how “sensible” gun laws should work for everyone.