A surprise proposal by Republicans to repeal the state’s system of gun background checks and permits has set off an eruption of protest by DFLers and top law enforcement officials.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
We’ll come back to the DFLers. \u00a0Let’s talk about the “top law enforcement officials” – the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association and the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association. \u00a0They have protested every <\/em>bill supporting the human right of self-defense; they opposed the carry bill, Cornish’s castle law – you name it, the MPPO and the MCOP have protested it. \u00a0Remember when they backed up Wes “Lying Sack of Garbage” Skogland in saying that carry permits would be going to gang-bangers? \u00a0Their ostensible reason this time around\u00a0\u00a0is that it removes their discretion and their “ability to do background checks”.<\/p>\nThey were wrong before, and they’re wrong now.<\/p>\n
The bill, which easily cleared a GOP-controlled panel Wednesday, could sweep through a Minnesota House led by a new Republican majority.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Now, when guns are the subject, you can expect Heather Martens, of new astroturf group “Protect Minnesota”, to pop up:<\/p>\n
“Whose side are you on?” said Heather Martens, executive director [and one of likely 2-3 members] of Protect Minnesota. “Are you on the side of the criminals who want to get easy access to guns? Or are you on the side of the public that expects to be protected by its law enforcement?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Blah, blah, blah. \u00a0Heather Martens is up there with Larry Jacobs as the most over-quoted person in the Twin Cities media. \u00a0Unlike Jacobs, she doesn’t actually work at a real academic institution, although the Humphrey Institute poll and Martens have about the same record for accuracy.<\/p>\n
The biggest complaint? \u00a0“The state check is more thorough than the Feds'”.<\/p>\n
The answer? \u00a0There are 38 states that have no such checks at all – <\/em>they use the feds’ system – and they have no more, and usually fewer, problems than the states that do their own registrations, like Minnesota and 11 other (usually high-crime) states.<\/p>\nThe story does <\/em>talk with some people with some common sense…:<\/p>\nAt Capra’s Outdoors in Blaine, gun department manager Todd Lundstrom said the federal background check makes the state permit seem redundant.<\/p>\n
“Personally, I don’t see any benefit in it,” Lundstrom said. “If we didn’t do a background check with the FBI over the phone, yeah, then I’d say it’s a good idea to have that.” He said the change was unlikely to affect gun sales.<\/p>\n
Rick Thompson of Blaine, a customer at Capra’s, said that existing state and federal gun laws are adequate.<\/p>\n
“I wouldn’t want them any more restrictive or any less,” Thompson said. On state and federal background checks, he said, “I don’t know why you’d need both.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The state system doesn’t need to exist.\u00a0 Time to get rid of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The GOP majority in the Legislature has been gratifyingly quick about using their mandate to make a difference. Tony Cornish, rep from Good Thunder, has been working faster than most. Yesterday, he\u00a0introduced a bill that would eliminate the state’s background check for handgun purchases – noting, quite rightly, that the state’s process is redundant. \u00a0Minnesota […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17710"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17713,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17710\/revisions\/17713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}