Minnesota gun rights advocates declared victory, while anti-gunners screamed painfully, when the Minnesota legislature passed a long-awaited concealed carry reform measure and Gov. Tim Pawlenty immediately signed it into law.
With Pawlenty’s signature, Minnesota becomes the 35th state with a “shall-issue/right-to-carry” law on the books. Henceforth, all qualified Minnesota residents will now be able to get a concealed pistol license (CPL).
Indeed, Pawlenty’s swift pen work left concealed carry opponents stunned, having had no time at all to mount any sort of lobbying effort in hopes of securing a veto. Democratic Farm Labor (DFL) party anti-gunners were fuming, but one of the bill’s drafters, attorney David Gross, told Gun Week he was delighted.
“We worked real hard on this a long time,” Gross said. “Empires do not crumble without a fight.”
Gross and Hamline University law professor Joe Olson drafted the language for the original bill, the attorney noted.
The measure was passed by Republicans and some rural DFLers, who broke from the party leadership.
Included in the bill is a declaration that the Second Amendment guarantees a “fundamental and individual right to keep and bear arms.” There is also a reciprocity provision, and language that gives broad latitude in where firearms may be carried, but very narrowly defines areas where they may be prohibited.
Areas where licensed citizens may carry include public parks, public buildings, fairgrounds; virtually any public venue that is not specifically posted. Malls and churches, for example, can declare concealed firearms unwelcome, but the economic downside of that is the risk of losing business from gunowners.
Gross said this legislation is the product “of a law professor and a practicing gun rights attorney with a combined 60 years of experience.” The new statute, which takes effect this month, covers all the bases, he said.
Senate DFLers labored for 7&Mac251; hours in a heated debate on Apr. 28 to derail the measure. A couple of senators even trotted out wearing soft body armor to call the measure “sheer madness,” according to The Minneapolis Star Tribune. Their efforts were in vain, as the bill passed the state Senate 37-30. Pawlenty signed the bill almost immediately. The measure had previously passed the state House 88-46.
The bill’s Republican sponsors, led by Sen. Pat Pariseau (Farmington), dismissed the protests as fear-mongering and doomsday predictions, maintaining that 34 other states have adopted similar measures without catastrophic consequences.
“If I want to have a gun in my purse, that should be my choice, not the sheriff’s,” said Sen. Julianne Ortman (R-Chanhassen), according to The Star-Tribune.
Minnesota’s new CPL law replaces a system that critics said was rife with cronyism and favoritism, under which sheriffs and police chiefs were given broad discretion over who got a carry permit. That has ended. From now on, sheriffs must issue a CPL to anyone 21 or older who meets certain requirements, including handgun safety training and criminal and mental health background checks.
The lengthy bill, said Gross, avoids “most of the common pitfalls with right-to-carry laws in the United States.” He noted some predictions that as many as 90,000 more Minnesotans will eventually be licensed to carry.
On the subject of reciprocity, Gross said the Department of Public Safety would be responsible for researching the concealed carry laws in other states, and from that effort, develop a list of states whose CPLs would not be recognized. It would, he said, be a very small list.
There is a provision that allows sheriffs to deny a CPL application, but there is also an appeals process that allows for an appeal to be conducted in “no longer than 60 days,” he said.
Gross told Gun Week that within hours of Pawlenty’s signing of the bill, his telephone began ringing.
“I got more calls from deputy sheriffs and line cops,” he said. “My phone was ringing off the hook, with people telling me ‘congratulations’ and ‘thank you.’ ”
While beat officers support the new law, opposition came from police administrators, education groups and churches. Sen. Dean Johnson, (DFL-Willmar), a Lutheran pastor, perhaps best represented the emotional rhetoric offered by opponents of the measure when he stated, “This state will forever be changed, and not for the positive. What are we scared of? Why are we so fearful? Why should violence beget violence? I’m supposed to arm myself and get even? It does not make any sense to me.”
Countering that, according to The Star Tribune, was Sen. Michael Jungbauer (R-East Bethel), who said, “I wouldn’t worry about honest people next to me in church carrying guns.”
A day after the bill’s passage, there were reports that gun classes were filling up fast.
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