Published Mar 23, 2002A small number of antigun types have been hysterically predicting the end of civilization as we know it if our state finally passes the Minnesota Personal Protection Act (MPPA). Their sources seem limited to antigun newspaper editorials and press releases from the so-called Violence Policy Center, a gun-control lobbying group that masquerades as a research facility.
Much of the doomsday talk comes from our own Citizens for a Safer Minnesota, a "ban-all-handguns" front group consisting of a handful of Uptown coffee shop activists and a dozen or so women in pink sweatshirts from the minivan brigade. They are about "safety" like PETA is about "ethics."
These people refuse to talk to law enforcement authorities in the 33 states that already have similar handgun permit laws to find out how well they work. Nor do they read any of the legitimate research that they often criticize. It appears they even neglected to read the current bill that is sitting in the Minnesota Senate after a 33-33 stalemate. But then again, when did the facts ever matter to gun-control zealots?
Last year, the bill overwhelmingly passed the House, and missed by one vote in the Senate. This year, after extensive dialogue with Minnesota law enforcement, the bill's authors produced what is generally referred to as the "sheriffs' amendment." Among other things, it would raise the minimum age for permitholders from 18 to 21, require training that includes both hands-on skills and instruction in self-defense law, and reestablish sheriffs and chiefs of police as coequal permit issuing authorities.
But its most significant change would give law enforcement very broad discretion in denying permits. As it states quite clearly in the new amendment, in addition to the ability to deny for "objective" criteria (criminal convictions, ineligibility to own firearms, etc.) the issuing authority will be able to: "deny the application on the grounds that there is a substantial likelihood that the applicant may be dangerous to the public if authorized to carry a pistol under a permit" (New 2002 language -- Section 10, Subdivision 6a, 3).
Note that a conviction for a crime or a commitment to a mental institution is not required to deny the permit. Further, both criminal and noncriminal history, including incidents related to mental health, may be used to establish lack of fitness. Thus the oft-repeated claim that "only convicted felons and individuals who've been involuntarily committed to a mental institution would be prohibited" is false.
The recent report from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension proved what carry supporters have known all along: There is a disturbingly unequal distribution of permits in Minnesota. Less than half the population (2.4 million outstate) gets 88 percent of them, while the other half (2.6 million people in the seven-county metro area) receives only 12 percent. It is hardly a coincidence that the area with the fewest permits also includes the communities with the greatest concentration of poor people and minorities.
A recent Zogby poll shows that Americans across all demographic groups support concealed carry by an astonishing 66 percent, with the strongest support coming from those same poor and minority communities. In Minnesota support is even higher; recent polls show as many as 75 percent of citizens favor the new bill.
The National Association of Chiefs of Police found that over 60 percent of the nation's 23,113 police chiefs and sheriffs favor allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed firearms. Surveys of rank and file police show even higher support.
Last year Minnesota had 138 murders, 2,111 rapes, and almost 8,000 violent assaults. Conservative estimates are that passing the MPPA would reduce those numbers by about 5.5 percent each year, in addition to any other reductions in crime that might be achieved through things such as tougher sentences.
Yet in order to appease the "sensitivities" of a small number of vocal activists, some senators are willing to condemn 11 more people to a violent death, 116 more women to brutal rapes, and 440 more innocent Minnesotans to vicious beatings.
The mobster Sammy (The Bull) Gravano once called gun-control activists "the best friends a crook ever had. 'Cause guys like me will always get a gun."
Sammy would surely love his 33 friends in the Minnesota Senate.
-- John Caile, Shakopee. Communications director, Concealed Carry Reform Now of Minnesota.
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