This will help WI folks too as a MN law will give WI some leverage in passing a Concealed Carry Law.
Duluth Tribune Article- MN Conceal/Carry Bill
Posted on Thu, Apr. 28, 2005
Concealed-carry bill will probably pass
POLITICS: A handgun law similar to one struck down by a court has the needed votes.
BY BRIAN BAKST
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ST. PAUL - A tweaked version of a handgun-permitting law that was invalidated by Minnesota's courts picked up momentum in the Legislature on Wednesday, and could be back on the books by the time lawmakers adjourn in May.
Critics of the bill said they'd have a hard time stopping it, and Senate DFL Majority Leader Dean Johnson of Willmar said he doesn't plan to block a vote.
Three Northland state senators -- Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook; Tom Saxhaugh, DFL-Grand Rapids; and Becky Lourey, DFL-Kerrick -- will serve on a working group meant to make the bill passable, Johnson said late Wednesday after a party caucus.
The House Civil Law and Elections Committee voted 7-5 to reinstate the 2003 law, with all the committee Republicans in favor and the DFLers against.
The 2003 law revised a system that had given sheriffs and police chiefs wide power to deny permits, requiring them instead to issue the permits to most law-abiding applicants. The change led to a large increase in the number of people who got permits.
The gun bill is one stop away from a House floor vote, where even opponents concede it easily will pass. Johnson said he intends to hold an up-or-down Senate vote on the bill if it clears the House and not bury it in committee.
"The issue perhaps is not as volatile as we thought last year," said Johnson, DFL-Willmar, who opposed the bill in 2003. "I don't think the problems have played out as predicted."Lourey had previously voted against the law, but Bakk and Saxhaug supported it.
Johnson reminded the public that the state Senate never held a hearing on the measure but took a vote on it as part of a Department of Natural Resources bill, which eventually was ruled unconstitutional by the courts. He said at least one public hearing on the bill would be held before it moves to a vote before the full Senate.
Saxhaug said he believed the measure would be amended so guns would be banned in churches, and churches wouldn't have to post signs informing visitors that guns were banned.
"It seems very obvious to me that you shouldn't have guns in there unless there is a sign on the door saying you can bring a gun in," Saxhaug said.
Lourey agreed. "Without question we've got to get these ugly signs out of our churches," Lourey said. "That's just not Minnesota character."
There was also some concern that fees haven't covered the costs to counties for issuing the permits, she said. All three said there was a substantial shift in attitude among those opposed to the concealed-carry law. "A number of senators have said the fears they had about concealed-carry did not materialize," Saxhaug said.
But Bakk said he believes the bill will be re-enacted this year without major changes.
One outspoken critic, Rep. Nora Slawik, DFL-Maplewood, said the bill's passage is virtually certain.
"It's clear it's going to go through," she said. "We know we can't defeat it."
The rekindled debate comes two weeks after the Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld a ruling that threw out the 2003 law. Two courts agreed it was improperly enacted because it was tacked onto an unrelated bill to force a Senate vote. The state attorney general's office intends to appeal the rulings to the state Supreme Court, possibly this week.
More than 25,000 people obtained permits under the new rules until the law was struck down, about twice the number of permits issued under the old law.
The 2003 law allowed people at least 21 years old with a clean record, no mental illness and proper training to get a permit. Before the law, sheriffs and police chiefs could deny permits to people who couldn't show an occupational or personal-safety need. But sheriffs in nonmetro Minnesota tended to grant them more liberally.
The bill endorsed Wednesday makes only one change to the 2003 law. Business owners who had to post signs and issue verbal warnings forbidding guns on their property would have to do only one form of notification.
