Note To MNGOP Strategerists
By Mitch Berg
I’m not saying this is going to win any elections by itself.
But you might pick up a lot of votes with a sustained, continuous effort to show Minnesotans…
…just who MNDFL chair Richard Carlbom really is.
I mean, what Minnesotans won’t love the fact that their dominant party is led by a Hermann Göring lookalike with the rhetorical chops of an eighth-grader with a concussion?
September 3rd, 2025 at 9:04 am
MNans who have not left the state and keep voting these bums in. Demographics are against the state ever going purple, never mind red. But hey, surprise me.
September 3rd, 2025 at 10:20 am
Democrats want to ban specific firearms thinking that will prevent gun violence.
We banned prostitution. Are you saying there are no hookers, no johns in this state?
We banned carjacking. Are you saying there are no carjackers in this state?
We banned the sale of methamphetamine. Are you saying there are no meth heads, no drug dealers in this state?
It looks to me as if simply banning something doesn’t stop people from doing it. Explain to me how this ban will be different from the others.
September 3rd, 2025 at 12:02 pm
Okay conservatives, if a gun ban isn’t the answer, what is the answer?
Depends on the question. “Gun violence” is too broad a category for one simple solution. It breaks down into three separate problems with three separate causes and therefore three different possible solutions.
First, admit the numbers are wonky because different advocacy groups count incidents differently. Roughly speaking, there were 45,000 deaths by firearm in 2023: 27,000 were suicide;18,000 were homicide; 450 accidental shootings; and 600 law enforcement shootings.
Second, 27,000 suicides by firearm are broadly spread across all age groups. These are people who already own a gun and choose to use that tool to end their lives. The 450 accidental shootings are also people who already have a gun but were careless with it. Waiting periods, red flag laws, one-per-month purchases, and magazine capacity bans haven’t stopped suicides or accidents. The only way to prevent these deaths is door-to-door searches to seize all firearms. That leaves law-abiding citizens defenseless and the public won’t stand for that.
Third, the 600 law enforcement shootings can’t be prevented as long as we have armed police. Nobody seriously suggests sending unarmed police after violent criminals.
Fourth, the 18,000 homicides include criminals shooting each other as well as domestic disputes, carjackings and robberies, and self-defense. Of those, the 750 deaths in “mass shootings” include gangs shooting more than four of each other as well as 50 “school shootings” meaning any time a shot is fired at or near a school. A gang war in which four people are killed and bullets strike a school building count as both a “mass shooting” and a “school shooting.”
Criminals don’t obey laws – that’s what “criminal” means – so gun bans won’t affect them. They will obtain guns the same way they obtain drugs and trafficked children. The only way to stop criminals from committing gun crimes is to get the criminals off the streets and Democrats like Mary Moriarty are dead-set against that.
Several recent mass shootings have been committed by people who suffered from mental illness and were taking chemicals to alter their emotional state, as well as receiving “gender affirming” mental health treatment. Listing “transgender” as a mental illness which disqualifies a person from buying a firearm might be a start on reducing gun violence. Would Democrats be willing to do that?
We see time and again that the best way to stop a criminal with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Maybe instead of banning guns, we should be subsidizing them, with free training and free ammo to practice more, and Good Samaritan immunity from lawsuit. Would Democrats be willing to do that?
Finally, if none of those solutions are acceptable, I guess we could always change our Facebook pages. At least that way we are DOING SOMETHING to signal our virtue without doing any additional harm.
September 3rd, 2025 at 12:16 pm
It’s about the poor character of DFL politicians, and overall, it’s about the realities of DFL governance. Blowing through multi-billion dollar surpluses with little to show for it, locking up the state on totally bogus science, running roughshod over the rights of the religious, etc..
Regarding the murders in Minneapolis, the best thing I can think of doing is to repeal the state’s ban on conversion therapy. It’s based on truly bad science, and a key issue for the perpetrator is that he was uncomfortable in his maleness. Having someone allowed to say “Robert, it’s OK to be a boy” could have saved his life and those of a couple of others.
September 3rd, 2025 at 3:00 pm
The memo he got from Martin about how to replace him included references to “ignorant nasty bluster”, and so here we are.