As Luck Would Have It

The governor – hurriedly switching from a T-shirt to some sort of suit, and from chucklehead fairgoers to “tough on crime“ governor – wants extra special consequences for the apparent gang banger who fired shots in the “gun free zone“ that is a Minnesota State Fair:

“If someone’s going to use a firearm in a crowded area where there’s innocent people and children, there needs to be a heavy penalty for that,” said the governor, calling on judges to get tougher.

Of course, the means to do that exist; the state already has a sentence enhancement – not only for people who shoot up the states biggest public relations vehicle, but for people who use guns in crimes at all.

Of course, the Ramsey County attorney John Choi, who would have jurisdiction in prosecuting the state fair shooter (if he’s ever arrested, much less prosecuted) has never, ever, not once sought that enhancement; at best, he’s dropped it as a sweetener for a plea deal; mostly – as in this shameful incident in 2015 – he doesn’t even bother.

Either did Susan Gertner, the prosecutor before him.

Either did Tom Foley, the prosecutor before her.

That’s 30 years worth of DFL prosecutors who have never, not once, applied in the sentence enhancement that governor “Dirty Harry“ Walz suddenly wants.

7 thoughts on “As Luck Would Have It

  1. Was thinking the same thing……why do these ‘get the guns off the streets’ politicians never ever actually enforce the existing guns laws on the books…yet keep screaming for more gun laws……

    Ellison…..Ellison……are you listening?!? Or is your ‘get tough on gun crime’ stance just for show……..

    We all know the answer to that. Sigh.

  2. Wally, newly minted tough-on-crime governor, was talking about judges and this post is about prosecutors?

    Yeah sure, there’s plenty of blame to go around with this (gun) violence/crime issue. Meaning yes, lax prosecution is a problem. And if that’s what you want to write about, so be it.

    But as @CrimeWatchMpls writes about constantly and patiently demonstrates, it’s the judges who are the problem.

  3. The first step is to admit the truth: strictly enforcing gun laws would result in putting more minority men in jail for longer sentences.
    The numbers aren’t too difficult to find. Around 1 in 3 white American households contain a firearm.
    Only about 1 in 10 black American households contains a firearm.
    FBI stats for 2019 tell us how many arrests (not convictions) were made for certain crimes.
    Whites are just shy of 60% of the population of the USA. In 2019, about 60,000 whites were arrested for illegal possession of a firearm. Blacks are about 12% of the US population. in 2019, about 45,000 blacks were arrested for illegal possession of a firearm.
    meaning if you are black, you are more than 5x as likely as a white person to be arrested for illegal possession of a firearm.
    So now you know why the RamCo attorney (an elected official) returns killers into the neighborhoods that spawned them.

  4. Given the political color of both HennCo and RamCO, their elected officials are always susceptible to a challenger coming from their left. Virtually all of Minneapolis’s city council members are to the left of Mayor Frey.
    This is why there is no hope for either Minneapolis or Saint Paul. There will be no tax payer revolt. The white liberals who live there will move into secure buildings, hire private security, or flee to the suburbs before they will vote for a politician who will throw more minorities in jail.
    It’s not like we haven’t seen this before.

  5. If I were a poor black person, I’d be raising H*** with prosecutors who refuse to apply the law and put criminals from my neighborhood in jail. It’s a danger hazard, and it’s also why a lot of employers don’t come to those neighborhoods. Why are politicians trying to keep them poor, unemployed, and dead?

  6. The solution isn’t righteous anger, bikebubba. Twin City politicians need votes and money to stay in office. The few minority citizens who speak up against the system are a drop in the bucket. Their voices are drowned out by the voices of political activists and wallets of campaign donors.
    I wonder, too, if the poor black person who complains about lax law enforcement in the Twin Cities is willing to see their own brother, uncle, or cousin do hard jail time for committing a firearm offense?

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