Minnesota’s gun owners are under siege.
Anti-Second Amendment political forces plan to barnstorm the state in a flurry of dramatic town hall meetings aimed at drumming up support for yet more gun control. This battle cry erupted after efforts to muster momentum for a special legislative session to push their agenda failed.
Gov. Tim Walz (D) even attempted to float a constitutional amendment shaped by anti-gunners, but that also failed to gain traction.
Minnesota voters can expect a blitz of town hall meetings pushing gun control
Now, anti-gunners want to recapture whatever momentum they thought they had after the August Annunciation Catholic School shooting. Second Amendment supporters refused to budge in their opposition to a ban on so-called “assault weapons,” leading to the present impasse.
Erin Murphy (DFL) is the Minnesota State Senate Majority Leader, and she believes there is sufficient public support for new gun control restrictions.
“Over and over again, we see polling data that shows a majority of Minnesotans support an agenda that would include banning high-capacity magazines and assault weapons.”
Big city mayors want to eradicate the state’s preemption laws
Always with the incendiary language. “Assault weapons” is a patently false smear on the most popular sporting rifles in the U.S. Tens of millions of these ubiquitous rifles are in circulation and used regularly by law-abiding citizens for a variety of purposes.
And “high capacity” is just another smear on standard magazines that are everyday accessories.
The state’s anti-gunners are in a virtual tug-of-war with Second Amendment supporters with no end in sight. Interestingly, it was just two years ago that Democratic-Farmer-Labor lawmakers had a solid majority in both chambers, and they did not push through an “assault weapon” ban.
They had bills floating to both prohibit semi-automatic weapons and “high capacity” magazines in 2023, but they failed to garner significant support.
Now, of course, they seek to blame gun rights supporters instead of addressing real issues such as school safety and mental health treatment. And running parallel to this effort is another insidious push spearheaded by Minnesota’s big city mayors.
The state is one of over 40 that have preemption laws on the books. This means that local political entities may not infringe on gun rights in ways that are more severe than those at the state level.
Municipal and county governments are “preempted” from trampling on Second Amendment rights, and for good reason.
No reasonable person wants an unworkable patchwork quilt of gun laws that could transform a good citizen into a felon simply for traveling to another city or county. Then there’s the fact that far too many of these mayors want nothing more than to ban guns entirely, which would turn their jurisdictions over to criminals who would remain armed.
However, the political leaders of St. Paul, Minneapolis, Rochester, and Bloomington held a press conference last week at the state capital to announce their scheme.
The four mayors are developing gun control ordinances to counter state law and go far beyond what lawmakers already enacted. They intend to defy Minnesota’s sensible preemption law and infringe on Second Amendment rights in more oppressive ways.
St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter told the press conference that mayors are frustrated with having their hands tied on gun rights issues.
“We have asked, and are asking again, for our state to either act and set those things into law statewide or remove the preemptions that prevent cities from being able to implement these laws ourselves,” Carter claimed. “State law preempts us from even enforcing these commonsense laws.”
Carter told reporters that St. Paul will ignore the preemption law next week and implement a blanket prohibition on semi-automatic weapons.
He also promised controversial—and quite illegal and unconstitutional—action on binary triggers, “high-capacity” magazines, “ghost guns,” and even making large swaths of his city off-limits for public carry.
All Minnesotans who value their Second Amendment freedoms must let their lawmakers know where they stand.
It is also a good idea to actively support the organizations that tirelessly work to preserve these fundamental rights.
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