Minnesota Constitutional Carry And Stand Your Ground
BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 10 months ago
The first is “permitless carry,” granting anyone in Minnesota the right to carry a gun wherever they go. The gun lobby prefers to call it “constitutional carry,” and it would invalidate all state laws on carrying or possession of weapons in public.
The second is “stand your ground,” which has two prongs. In your own home, you can shoot to kill in order to prevent a felony — such the stealing of a TV or the writing of a bad check. Anywhere else, you can shoot to kill if you feel like you’re being personally threatened. You don’t have to try to run away first. And you won’t have to prove that you had a solid reason to be afraid in the first place.
These gun bills (HF188 and HF238) were both introduced in the Minnesota House on Thursday, signed by a litany of Republican authors. They do not yet have Senate versions, but the Senate too is controlled by Republicans this year so it’s may be a matter of time.
So here’s how it currently works in Minnesota.
In order to carry a gun, you have to get a permit from your county. They’ll check if you can legally have a gun — that you haven’t gotten that right revoked because you were convicted of a felony or because you beat up your spouse. Then you have to take a class and pass a range test. After that, you can walk around with that gun on your hip.
Minnesota also allows you to kill in self-defense. Obviously, if someone’s threatening your life, you aren’t expected to just lay down. But you do have to prove that you at least tried to get away, that killing was your last resort, and that any reasonable person in your position would have done the same thing.
“This is huge,” says The Rev. Nancy Nord Bence, executive director of gun control organization Protect Minnesota. “Yes, it’s bad that now you could shoot someone if you think they’re going to steal your TV in your house. That’s terrible. But the part we have to really pay attention to is this completely changes our understanding of how we prove self-defense in this state and what self-defense means.”
[ … ]
“Look at the fear of immigrants we have in this state,” Nord Bence says. “You have been told that we have to worry about these Somali immigrants because they’re terrorists, and now you see a guy who looks like a terrorist, and you have no duty to retreat before using deadly force, and the presumption of innocence is with the shooter. … It’s going to lead to a wholesale arming of communities that feel threatened by this because if you were, say, a Somali immigrant in St. Cloud right now with all of the racial tension that’s going on, this bill is reason for you to be afraid.”
Then the author (or editor) gives us this picture.
The caption reads “Please make make sure it’s not just a woman looking for her lost dog.”
I think the major problem with this discussion is that it assumes that situations of self defense can be neatly pigeonholed and bifurcated into those in which the person or persons intend to do you harm, and those in which they are in your home unannounced and uninvited but only intend to walk away with your television set.
You don’t know which situation it is if someone is in your home unannounced and uninvited, and if you claim you do you’re naïve. You simply don’t know the intentions of the heart, and moreover you don’t know how the situation will evolve. You cannot sit down and eat dinner while the perpetrator steals your television, only to find out later that he intended all along to rape your wife and beat you to death and burn you to a crisp with gasoline.
Furthermore, that’s my problem with LEOs who recommend that you simply sit still and allow perpetrators to wave guns around while they rob an establishment. If you do, the breaths you take may be your last, and if you have a weapon, you’d better consider using it. Not only may the perpetrator shoot you intentionally, he may do it negligently while he’s waving the gun around if he has no trigger discipline.
Finally, go and read the article the author uses to illustrate the point on shooting people looking for dogs. The person who was looking for her dog didn’t break and enter, and it’s illegal to kill people for trespassing and I’m sure it will be under the new law. In the picture shown above, the girl holding the shotgun had better be prepared to shoot, while deliberate with her judgment if it could be a family member who happens to have a key. She better know who has keys and who doesn’t, as well as their typical schedules.
In every possible way, the articles linked here and the opinions they convey are tactically stupid. The only real problem I see here is that Benelli M4 may knock that little girl for a couple of loops. You’d better pack that buttstock into your shoulder, little miss. You’re sporting the same gun the U.S. Marines used for room clearing in Now Zad, Afghanistan.
On January 18, 2017 at 7:48 am, Chris said:
That little miss better be in the process of shooting something. Her finger is on the trigger.
On January 18, 2017 at 8:55 am, Billy Mullins said:
I see no reason to “shoot to kill” – EVER! Even though they were ready to do me or mine serious harm, I have no desire to kill someone. However, I have no desire to be hurt or robbed or have any of my kin or kith to be hurt or robbed either. Therefor, while I would never shoot to KILL, I would not hesitate to shoot someone in order to stop them from hurting/robbing me or mine. I would shoot them, as close to center of mass as I could under the stress, but my sole goal would be to stop them. Besides, if I am on the stand and a prosecutor asks me if I shot to kill and I answer in the affirmative, I have just admitted to premeditated murder on open court and under oath. I could reply in all honesty, “No, counselor, I did NOT shoot to kill. I shot them but my sole aim was to stop him.” Yup, “shoot to stop” is my mantra. Aiming for center of mass is the most likely way to stop somebody who is about to harm (physically or fiscally) me or mine. Of course if I somehow stop them PERMANENTLY . . . I doubt I’ll lose any sleep over it.
On January 18, 2017 at 9:33 am, Fred said:
There are so many inaccuracies with the article. Of course if your only source of information for your ‘news’ article is from Rev. Nancy Nord Bence a woman Lutheran Reverend with a hyphenated last name then that tells you all you need to know. Now she goes into her true calling; to leave the people of Minnesota helpless and defenseless. Only evil seeks to leave you defenseless and helpless. Fake Christians piss me off.
On January 18, 2017 at 1:37 pm, Billy Mullins said:
Someone on another board commented that St Augustine, writing in the 3rd century observed that “in the last analysis, the State relies on, and wants, a monopoly on force to prevail.” I suspect that the king of the first city-state outlawed openly carrying arms. I will be sorely surprised if the leftists EVER give up trying to disarm the populace; although I do not believe that the desire of a state to have a monopoly on force stems from a desire to render the populace incapable of defending themselves from street criminals. I believe that the drive to obtain a monopoly on force stems from a desire to prevent – or at leas forestall – a revolution. It is much harder (though not impossible) to mount a successful revolution when the governed lack proper tools of violence. Under such circumstances, successful revolution requires a higher percentage of the populace be sufficiently motivated to revolt. Such revolutions are always bloodier than other ones if only because so many of the ruled, being unarmed, will die; along with a greater number of rulers.
On January 20, 2017 at 10:54 pm, Phil Ossiferz Stone said:
Apparently the Lutherans figure prominently among the denominations that take Federal money in return for salting Syrian and Somali ‘refugees’ from Vermont to North Dakota to Seattle.
On January 18, 2017 at 12:49 pm, Haywood Jablome said:
Oh, the Peoples Republic of Minnesota. Gotta love em. I’m sure the local paper, The Star and Sickle, will run with this…..
On January 18, 2017 at 1:18 pm, Billy Mullins said:
“The first is “permitless carry,” granting anyone in Minnesota the right to carry a gun wherever they go. The gun lobby prefers to call it “constitutional carry,” and it would invalidate all state laws on carrying or possession of weapons in public.”
Somebody needs to tell the writer of that piece that governments DO NOT and CAN NOT grant rights. Rights are either present from birth or they are not rights but privileges. States which are acting above their stations may grant a privilege which they should never have been allowed to restrict in the first place.
In the final analysis, all compliance is voluntary. Just as individuals may (temporarily or permanently) elect not to comply with a statute, so governments – actually the people IN said governments – may elect to ignore one or more parts of a constitution. A wise man (the redoubtable Kurt Hoffmann) once wrote, “For evil to flourish good men need only to fail to kill the government agents committing it.”
On January 18, 2017 at 5:52 pm, Dov Sar said:
When I was a young (female) ensign in the Navy in the early 1980’s, a woman knocked on my apartment door in Corpus Christi Texas at about 2:00 am; a pretty young blonde who looked terrified and begged me for help. No one else was visible through the peep hole. When I opened the door and said, “can I help you,” I had my loaded pistol pointed at her, and her two young, tall, male friends were braced up against the wall where I couldn’t see them until the door was opened. She said to me, “we have the wrong apartment,” and I said, “I guess you do,” and that was the end of it! I think that gun kept me out of a lot of trouble.
On January 18, 2017 at 6:12 pm, Herschel Smith said:
That’s UN-possible. A gun is no protection says Bloomberg and Everytown.