Minnesota finally passes a concealed-carry bill...

... but it has some onerous compromises:

But backers say the law actually makes the state a safer place by raising the minimum age of gun owners from 18 to 21, and by making all applicants go through the safety training.

Of course, even those compromises to appease anti-gun forces aren't enough; they intend to fight this bill in court. They succeeded in getting the first version struck down due to a ban on multiple-subject legislation in the state constitution (eg, a technicality); this time they plan to use religion as a front:

Groups that fought the law in 2003 and filed the lawsuit that brought it down have promised to keep fighting in court. They say the bill still contains a number of provisions that are vulnerable to legal challenge, including not doing enough to ensure rights for churches that want to bar guns from their property.

Amazing, isn't it, how eager Democrats can be to defend religions as soon as doing so falls in line with one of their pet tyrranies? The fact is, the forces of gun control are incapable of dealing in good faith. They will push as hard as they can to get as many negative provisions into a good carry law as they can, and then they will fight to strike it down in court regardless. There are many issues on which reasonable men may differ, yet find sufficient common ground in good faith to live with one another. The gun bigots are no longer reasonable men.

To understand just how unreasonable, I did a little looking around. If you want to find out what the law really says in Minnesota on concealed-carry, there's an official resource on the issue. It links to a page with the state forms for concealed carry applications (presently down to modify the forms), and that page has a report on the 2003 law for the period it was in effect. That report has a table compiled from reports by the 87 county sheriffs, describing the actions taken regarding concealed-carry permits.

Issued	15,677
Denied	139
Suspended	2
Revoked	8
Cancelled	10
Emergency/Expired	31
On-Hold	6

Get that? Out of almost 16,000 permits issued, 10 were suspended or revoked. In those 10 revocations, there were no actual violent crimes -- the revocations were for actions that are legitimate warnings signs of potential violence, but there's no indication here that actual violence was committed. It's probably possible to quibble over details on that, of course, but the fact is, Minnesota did not see a wave of violence as a result of this law.. and the law has extensive compromises to appease the anti-gun forces... and the gun bigots still want it struck down.

Oh, and the church provisions? Churches are no different than any other private building; they must either post a sign or personally inform visitors that firearms are prohibited on the premises. That doesn't seem so onerous to me. Why single them out? Simple: to make a political point.

Posted on 2005-06-05 16:57:51.0 by matthew@triggerfinger.org

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