A Holiday Present To “Protect” MN

The Select Committee on Capitol Security met yesterday

They moved to hire some new State Patrol and rent-a-cops.   There wasn’t a whole lot of controversy there, although Representative Woodard and Senator Ingebrigtsen noted that security in the parts of the Capitol that need it is already pretty good. 

But the reason reason people paid attention to yesterday’s meeting was because Rep. Michael Paymar intended to push his proposal to ban legally-carried firearms in Capitol complex buildings (the Capitol, the State Office Building and the Judicial building). 

 More than 800 Minnesotans have filed with the DPS to indicate that they have a permit to carry a firearm and may bring their pistol into the Capitol. Originally, the draft recommendation would have required gun owners to update that notification annually; at Ingebrigtsen’s urging, that timeframe was adjusted to renewing the notification every five years, and was adopted by the committee.

In other words, you renew your notification as often as you renew your permit.  Truth be told, I already thought I had to do that…

…if, hypothetically, I had a carry permit and desired to carry at the Capitol. 

After that bit of fairly sensible legislation, it was looney-time:

Paymar argued that the fact that the Capitol had so far been spared any violent altercations was not evidence that current safety measures are adequate.

“Having a ‘cross your fingers’ kind of policy coming out of this entity, which is charged with making recommendations about public safety on the Capitol complex, to me, is irresponsible,” said Paymar, who chairs the House Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee.

Mijnnesota’s carry-permit holders are the single constituency in Minnesota least likely to cause a problem , at the Capitol or anywhere else.  Ever  Period. 

No, seriously – Minnesotans at large commit murder at the rate a little over 2 per 100,000 people per year.  There’s been one unjustified homicide by a carry-permittee in ten years; the math breaks down to .1/5 million Minnesotans/year, or .002/100,000 annually.  That’s right around three orders of magnitude safer. 

Mr. Paymar would more aptly worry about one of his Saint Paul constituents – perhaps the many supporters of terrorist-accomplice Kathleen Soliah, who live in Paymar’s neighborhood and tacitly condoned her activities in the seventies – freaking out and killing people in the Capitol than the state’s legal carry permittees. 

No, this wasn’t done because of any danger, real or perceived or even fabricated.  This was done to try to try to salvage at least a smidgen of “Protect” MN’s narrative from this past session – the addlepated notion that legislators were “intimidated” by gun owners who carried openly and legally during last spring’s epic waste of taxpayer time hearings on Rep. Paymar, Hausman and Martens’ various gun grab bills.  The staff at Capitol Security refute that idea with prejudice; ask them for yourself. 

Emphasis added in this next bit:

Ingebrigtsen pushed back, and pointed out that Gov. Mark Dayton had already said publicly he does not favor a move to ban firearms in the Capitol.

“We’ve also got the governor saying the same thing,” Ingebrigtsen said. “[Dayton] doesn’t see anything wrong with law-abiding citizens carrying handguns on the Capitol complex.”

The vote fell, 2-2 (ties are counted as defeats); Lt. Governor Yvonne Prettner Solon (there’s a trivia question for you) and Paymar voted for it, Ingebrigtsen and Woodard voted nay, SCOM justice Lori Gildea abstained (she might have to hear a court case on the issue someday…)

…and Ann Rest, a DFL Senator from Plymouth who is as electorally bulletproof as an Armored Humvee, didn’t show up. 

Don’t think for a moment that was an accident.  Even safe DFLers are nervous about the Metrocrats’ insane obsession with disarming the law-abiding. 

Not that they’re going to stop them. 

No, that’s our job.  At the ballot box. 

(NOTE TO DFL LEGISLATORS:   If I had a carry permit, I doubt I’d ever carry openly.  It’s not my style.  But feel free to be intimidated – not by any gun I’d hypothetically carry, but by the fact that I can shred through every single actual factual assertion that Heather Martens and Richard Carlbom make about the gun control issue like a riding mower going through a daisy patch, and not break a sweat.  Be intimdated by the fact that if either Martens or Carlbom debated me, or any of 500 other gun rights advocates, in a face to face, open debate, I’d fold them up like origami swans and make them scamper away like scared bunnies.  Be intimidated by the fact that I, myself, have convinced liberal Democrats that you are wrong, and I’m just getting started.  Ignore any gun I might hypothetically be carrying.  Be intimidated by the weapon between my ears.  On this issue, your side is carrying a pellet pistol; I’ve got a .44 Magnum, and I don’t mean one of those wimpy four inch barrels, either)

7 thoughts on “A Holiday Present To “Protect” MN

  1. Rep. Paymar says legislators may be intimidated by people inside the hearing room who are openly carrying pistols in holsters on their belts.

    When the legislature holds hearings on police officer pensions or gun control laws, cops show up to testify. They come in uniform, openly carrying pistols in holsters on their belts. Capitol Security officers attend hearings in uniform, openly carrying pistols in holsters on their belts. Are legislators intimidated by them, too?

    So are we planning to make the Capitol a completely gun-free zone, including cops and security?

    If not, what is it about guns on the belts of some witnesses that Rep. Paymar finds comforting whereas guns on the belts of other witnesses are frightening? What does that tell us about how he views society and the citizens he’s supposed to be representing?

    .

  2. But Joe, in Ferret Face Paymar’s pea brain, those are the “safe” carriers of guns. Being the minions of the ruling class, they have to have those in case us uppity peasants fore go our torches and pitchforks for our side arms to start our race filled, hateful, religious, anti government revolution! Did I catch all of the memes?

  3. Mitch, I’d counter that the more only irresponsible attitude toward public safety related to this issue comes from the gomers who continually elected Michael Paymar to represent them.

    I am extremely pleased to use “elected”, in past tense.

    I would like to see Heather’s list of “18,000” people represented by her incompetent lobbying, however. Bless her (and Joan’s) hysterical and ineffective soul.

  4. The Strib’s coverage of this was typical:

    “The safety of the State Capitol’s staffers and visitors weighed against the freedom of the state’s nearly 160,000 gun permit holders Tuesday in a vigorous debate that effectively killed a proposal to extend a weapons ban on the Capitol grounds.”

    This isn’t an issue that reduces the safety of Capitol staff in order to increase the freedom of us gun nuts – it’s an issue that increases the safety of Capitol staff. Particularly those who are low enough on the totem pole to not rank security of their own.

    Not every junior intern who finds herself walking through those dark parking ramps alone, after everyone else has gone home, will choose to carry for her own protection. But every junior intern has the right to decide for herself.

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