Chanting Points Memo: Ron Latz’s Polished Turd

Death came to me the other day as I was shopping for crackers.

No, not in the whole black robe and scythe get-up.  In fact, he looked a little bit like a Ryan Winker speech sounds.

But I digress.  We started talking.

DEATH: OK, so how about “death”?  Whatdya think?

ME:  Well, I’ll choose life, if I have any say in the matter.

DEATH:  Right, right.  No problem.  I’m all about the “win-win” – well, as long as I’m not walking around in the robes, naturally.

ME: Naturally.

DEATH: So how about a compromise.  We take “death” off the table, and settle for a concussion and a toxic intestinal infection?

ME:  Er…that’s not much of a compromise…

———-

This past week and a half, Representatives Paymar and Martens Hausman introduced stupid, oppressive, constitutionally likely-dodgy gun grab bills.  Think “death”.

In response, Representative Hilstrom and Senator Ortman filed good gun bills – bills that ratchet up the consequences for mis-using firearms.  Think “life”.

In response to the public revulsion at the Paymar/Hausman/Stalin bill and the legislative juggernaut behind the Good Gun Bill, Senator Ron Latz – the Senate Judiciary Committee Chair, who has been trying to position himself as “reasonable” on the issue for some time – has introduced a head injury and a toxic infection of a “compromise” amendment to the Senate gun grab bill .

Latz’ bill would take most of the provisions of the Hilstrom/Hortman bill, and plop in all of the worst features of the Paymar/Hausman/Stalin gun grab bills.

According to GOCRA, the “compromise” bill would bring us:

Universal Registration:

These bills would require universal registration of pistols and sporting rifles, implemented through a “universal” background check, — twice: The bills would require every sale of such guns to go through a licensed dealer, who would charge $25 per transfer. These transfers would still require a permit to purchase, for which the House bill would charge you another $25 annually.

 

Rights Delayed

The bills extend the time that sheriffs and police have to process a purchase permit from five to seven business days, and allow the law enforcement official to fingerprint the applicant and extend the deadline to 30 days.

 

Easier Carry Permit Denials

The bad bills would allow sheriffs the judgement to deny a carry permit on the basis of a subjective “likelihood” that the applicant was dangerous.

More Difficult Carry Permit Appeals

The bad bills positively encourage abusive denials: they remove the sheriffs’ obligation to pay an applicant’s legal fees when a permit denial is overturned — a safeguard that has kept sheriffs departments honest, and bogus denials fairly low, for almost 10 years. The Sheriff’s Association has not asked for this unfair reversal of law.

The bad bills also lower the sheriffs’ standard of proof of danger to self or other others from “clear and convincing evidence” to the mere “preponderance of the evidence.”

Due Process Protections Gutted

The bad bills would remove legal protections against losing your firearm rights. Currently, before you lose your right to own a firearm, you must be convicted or committed by a court. Under the new bill, any involuntary hospitalization, even overnight, would disqualify you from owning guns indefinitely.

Making The Law Abiding Into Convicts

The bad bills set a very low standard of proof for conviction of serious gun crimes, using the phrase “knows or has reason to believe” to convict sellers who reports a gun stolen, or who sell a gun to a person who later commits a crime.

More Difficult Civil Rights Restoration

The bad bills increase the difficulty and expense for a person who has paid their debt to society to regain their civil rights.

Intersting how the DFL wants felons to be able to vote while they’re still in jail, but never have a chance of getting their Second Amendment rights back.

Hearings Tonight!

The Senate is holding hearings on both the Good Gun Bill and Latz’ bill – I’ll call it The Polished Turd, since that’s about what it is – tonight.  Hope you can make it.

And keep on lighting up the phones at the Capitol, especially for members of the House and Senate committees involved.  Sources at the Capitol tell me your efforts are making a difference.  It’s not even close; pro-Second Amendment traffic from Real Americans is crushing commentary from nannystate orcs.  This needs to continue, and accelerate.  

Go here for more information.

4 thoughts on “Chanting Points Memo: Ron Latz’s Polished Turd

  1. I *do* like the “Knows or heas reason to believe” standard……..for vote fraud.

    Not because it puts the burden on the voter, but because it makes it harder for leftists to defend them.

    A leftist with an absentee ballot application is like a creepy UofM Professor proffering candy to kindergardeners….no good ever comes of it.

  2. I was at the capitol tonight for the gun bills. Although I arrived late (7PM) the gun issues didn’t start until about 8PM. According to a GORCA rep, the change from 11AM to 6PM was not announced; a GORCA member spotted it on a capitol website. “Oops, we forgot to notify you” was his received response. Hence the burdensome wait until 8PM – make them wait and they’ll leave?

    I was interested in Latz’ adoption of Hennepin Co. Atty. Mike Freeman’s proposals and his language regarding making felonies of falsely reporting a firearm as lost or stolen. First, I am not aware of a mechanism that provides for such reporting of “lost” guns.

    Stolen firearms are entered as such in the NCIC database where a law enforcement officer can run the serial number and description of a recovered gun to see if it’s stolen or not. This is not available for “lost” guns. Or at least it wasn’t before. Perhaps that changed. It used to be a gray area in property reporting.

    I am not clear on how widespread this “problem” is. Never used to be. Granted, a crook could use a gun and then report it as stolen. Still not a common enough occurrence (in my opinion) to necesitate law changes.

    Unless, when the Dems’ hoped-for day arrives and they can send “authorities” door-to-door collecting all the previously registered guns, a gun owner who chose to deny ownership of a firearm could be charged criminally for claiming the gun was lost or stolen.

    Normally, such a statement would not be a criminal offense unless the owner proactively made such a false report to the police. Simple lying when asked would not be illegal.

    So, would this proposed law deem such a statement a “report” even though it was made in response to a question asked by “authorities”? If so, would it then make the person a felon?

    I may have seen one too many black helicopters. However, that part of Latz’ bill sounded suspicious.

    ALso, a couple weeks ago, Freeman was quite excited about the “North Dakota model.” Not sure what that was all about, but he was overheard discussing it with some followers in the hall and it seemed important to the gun issue.

    Time will tell, I guess …

  3. “Unless, when the Dems’ hoped-for day arrives and they can send “authorities” door-to-door collecting all the previously registered guns, a gun owner who chose to deny ownership of a firearm could be charged criminally for claiming the gun was lost or stolen.”

    Bingo

    ‘Course by then, that may well be a moot point if ya know what I mean; and I think ya do.

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