30-odd very south-suburban looking people showed up – 8 or nine of them kids.<\/p>\n They did have a whole bunch of professionally-printed banners…<\/p>\n Although the person in charge of bringing the hot dog buns was half an hour late.<\/p>\n The speakers – a couple of younger, non-profit-y looking women, one of whom identified herself as the “south suburban director” for Moms Want Action, spoke. \u00a0Or at least recited some anti-gun chanting points (mostly “cities that enact gun control get results!”, and “background checks would prevent suicide” and the like).<\/p>\n Anna Olson – I think I got the name right – the South Metro Coordinator for Moms Want Action.<\/p><\/div>\n “We are definitely part of a huge movement”, one of the non-profit-y-looking dreamsicle girls said to the sparse crowd.<\/p><\/div>\n Miss Non-Profit pointed out\u00a0what a number of shooters had suspected; the orange shirt theme – which served to make everyone present look like Dreamsicles – is intentionally a play on\u00a0“Blaze orange”, the hunter’s color that says “don’t shoot me”. \u00a0She also noted that the Dreamsicle Festival had been endorsed by Governor Another man – he didn’t speak very loudly, and so I suspect his name is not “Bob Mucus”, although as God is my witness that’s what it sounded like – gave the keynote speech.<\/p>\n Bob…somebody or other.<\/p><\/div>\n Mr…er, Bob, introduced himself as a man who’d spent his life around guns; not only a hunter, but someone who was “qualified to carry a gun in the cockpit” for some reason.<\/p>\n He also introduced himself himself as someone who had someone in his life who had “died at the hands of a gun”. \u00a0His sister – a 46 year old divorced mother of four who worked as a nurse at an inner-city hospital, was apparently shot by a gun\u00a0<\/em>as she was getting out of a car. \u00a0He also noted two junior high classmates – one who’d been murdered, and one who’d commited suicide. \u00a0Apparently both by guns that had nobody controlling them. \u00a0(He also noted that “91% of people want background checks”).<\/p>\n I was, indeed, tempted – as, no doubt, many of you are now – to ask “so, did they ever find a perp? \u00a0Did he\/she have a criminal record? \u00a0Did they ever ascertain a motive?” but it didn’t seem like the time of the place.<\/p>\n While no state legislators attended, Representative Masin’s campaign manager appeared; after introducing herself as Representative Masin’s campaign manager, in the segment of the presentation apparently reserved for legislators, she noted that she didn’t speak for Rep. Masin, whose campaign manger she was. \u00a0She recited the shopworn myth that “gun violence” rates are higher in rural western states due to more suicides.<\/p>\n About this time, I wanted to get up and ask “So why are you having this ‘rally’ here, rather than on the North Side, Dayton’s Bluff or along University Avenue?”<\/p>\n But I left. \u00a0I’m not going to say these people live in a world of their own – but I could have sworn I saw, sitting on a branch of a nearby tree, a grin, not attached to any sort of cat at all.<\/p>\n Down By The River, I…Well, You Know:<\/strong> \u00a0Next, I drove to the mean streets of North Minneapolis.<\/p>\n Not an orange shirt in sight.<\/p>\n So I checked my phone – and found that the Dreamsicle Rally was being held at the south end of the Stone Arch Bridge. \u00a0Alongside the Guthrie, the Mill City Museum, the Whitney Hotel, and blocks of upper-middle-class condos.<\/p>\n You count ’em. 150? 200? GOCRA turns out 2-3 times this many on a freezing January night for legislative hearings, without breaking a sweat.<\/p><\/div>\n I caught the end of what looked like Betsy Hodges’ speech – which was, point for point, the same speech that the non-profity-looking women in Eagan had given.<\/p>\n As in, they’d memorized the same chanting points from New York, down to the inflection.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/img_0289.jpg\")
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<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>Flint-Smith<\/del> Dayton, Mayors Coleman and Hodges…and the mayor of Eagan.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>