As he signed the bills into law, Walz claimed that he understands the constitutional rights of Americans. But in the very next breath, he said that he would not “allow extremists to define what responsible gun ownership looks like and to make this about the Second Amendment.”
So now gun rights advocates are the “extremists.”
He went on to assert the law was unrelated to the Constitution, but about “the safety of our children and our community.”
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan added that reaching Friday’s signing took “decades of organizing and rallies and marches and meetings, years of hope and years of heartbreak to get us here today.”
The signing ceremony was attended by former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who survived a mass shooting and is the wife of Sen. Mark Kelly (R-AZ). She was shot in the head by a deranged criminal in 2011 in Tucson, and six others died.
In a short speech, Giffords told the gathering that “stopping gun violence takes courage. Now is the time to come together. Be responsible. Democrat, Republican, independent — we must never stop the fight!”
This, of course, is hardly the universal opinion.
Rob Doar of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus declared in an interview that the state’s actions will likely hit the wrong targets. He said that common practices among peaceful gun owners, such as lending firearms to a friend or hunting partner, may be troublesome.
As for the illegal gun market, the effects will be slim or none.
“Really, it comes down to how these are applied,” Doar explained. “If we see a clear violation of somebody’s due process rights, then we’ll certainly take legal action.”
Red flag laws are another area in which supporters declare they are an essential tool to use against violence. But the Associated Press analyzed the practice in September and concluded that they are rarely used in states where they have been enacted.
In many instances, these laws also do not afford law-abiding gun owners’ due process. They are ripe for abuse and require little or no proof that there is a dangerous situation that needs to be averted.
Breitbart News noted that Minnesota pursued the same statutes that failed miserably in California. Not only has the Golden State had a red flag law since 2016, but it also adopted universal background checks in the early 1990s. So, how has that turned out?
In 2021, California led the U.S. in “active shooter incidents.”
Also note Colorado’s stringent controls on gun rights. The state has been beset with high-profile mass shootings, and those laws had zero effect. As Colorado Politics observed, “The state legislature passed the law in 2019 with supporters calling it a key tool to prevent gun violence. Colorado has continued to fall victim to mass shootings in the years since the law took effect.”
Similar laws elsewhere are merely overlooked by violent criminals seeking to prey on the public. These impediments serve no other function than to chill the freedoms of law-abiding Americans, freedoms enshrined in our most sacred political document.
Second Amendment rights should not depend on where an American lives, but that increasingly is the case. In states where these freedoms are not cherished, there is a mad rush to enact any measure under the pretense of “doing something.”
Whether that “something” is effective is hardly a consideration.
