“Tens of thousands more Minnesotans licensed to carry handguns in public haven’t turned the state into the Wild West shootout that gun-control advocates warned of.”

Where has it EVER turned a state into the “bloody wild west”?
Another gun control LIE? I’d say so!
————————————————————————

Minnesota carry law
Date: Mar 30, 2007 11:41 AM
http://www.claytoncramer.com/weblog/2007_03_25_archive.html#8171597153428018775

The Effects of the Minnesota Shall-Issue Carry Permit Law

The Minneapolis-St. Paul /Star-Tribune/, which has never been our friend
on gun-related matters, and certainly not on concealed carry, has a
lengthy article today about the effects of the new law. It is not very
complete in one respect (you’ll learn more later), but considering the
clear preference that the paper has, this is a surprisingly fair
analysis. The first page
<http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1089112.html>;, and second page
<http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1089112-p2.html>;:

Gun-carry law hasn’t produced more crime

Additional licensed handguns have neither increased nor decreased
violent crime in Minnesota, a state report shows.

Tens of thousands more Minnesotans licensed to carry handguns in
public haven’t turned the state into the Wild West shootout that
gun-control advocates warned of. But they also have not done much to
curb violent crime, a benefit that many gun-rights proponents
predicted when the state’s permitting law was liberalized.

Between 2002, the year before the law was changed, and 2005, the
most recent year for which state figures are available, Minnesota’s
violent crime rose 13 percent.

The 174 crimes committed by permit holders, according to a recent
state report, represent only a tiny fraction of the surge, which
experts say owes more to demographic trends and gangs.

The article does report what has been the experience of other states–as
initial opponents in law enforcement have seen that the sky didn’t fall:

“There was an awful lot of hype on both sides before the law
passed,” said state Public Safety Commissioner Michael Campion. “It
just hasn’t materialized. I never believed there’d be a decrease in
crime because people carry guns.”

Sheriffs, who are issuing hundreds of new handgun permits each
month, agree that the law’s impact on public safety, which ignited
intense debate for years leading up to its passage, has been negligible.

“Except for one domestic assault, we’ve had no incidents either
way,” said Dakota County Sheriff Don Gudmundson, an early critic of
the law.

He offered a possible explanation: As gun owners become more
experienced, they carry their weapons less often. “They’re too hot,
too cold, too heavy,” he said. “Most off-duty cops are not armed.”

But some Minnesotans are toting guns — and firing them. The state
Department of Health has recorded a sharp rise in injuries and
deaths from assaults with firearms since 2003. In the five years
before that, such casualties averaged 172 a year in Minnesota. In
the next three years, the average was 327, capped by a record 395 in
2005.

Much of the bloodshed has centered in Hennepin County, where the one
murder by a Minnesota permit holder occurred outside a Minneapolis
bar in 2005. Zachary Ourada of Minneapolis shot Billy Walsh, a bar
bouncer, four times in the back after Walsh ejected Ourada from
Nye’s Polonaise Room for being a drunken nuisance. Ourada is serving
36 years in prison.

The vast majority of permit holders are not causing such tragedies,
proponents of the new law point out.

…

Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek supports the Personal Protection
Act, saying it improved on the former law by increasing the minimum
age for a permit to 21, requiring training and providing more fees
to finance background checks.

“It took away some local control,” he said, adding that the worst
predictions of gun-control advocates “just didn’t turn out that way.”

The article does have some data on the number of permits issued:

No Minnesota permit holder has ever been convicted of robbery. And a
Star Tribune comparison of overall crime statistics and state
reports of convictions of permit holders indicates that their
likelihood of committing an assault is about 17 times less than the
general population’s, 12 times less for drunken driving and 31 times
less for drug crimes.

Besides the murder of Billy Walsh, a state report lists 22 other
crimes in which permit holders used their guns, including two
convictions of criminal sexual conduct, two assaults, two domestic
assaults and four cases of harassment, threats, disorderly conduct
or stalking.

Those convicted of serious crimes usually lose their permits; state
records show that 24 were revoked last year for reasons ranging from
mental health commitment to criminal convictions to gang membership.
And 177 applicants were denied permits in 2006, mostly because they
posed danger to themselves or others.

Meanwhile, 9,064 permits were issued statewide in 2006; sheriffs say
the rate of applications hasn’t slowed this year.

More than two-thirds of all denials have come in Ramsey County.
Sheriff Bob Fletcher has assigned a deputy full time to
investigating applicants with any record of mental illness, drug or
alcohol abuse or scrapes with the law. But that and other permitting
expenses have cost taxpayers $200,000 more than the fees collected.

The article also makes this claim which turns out to be incomplete,
based on news accounts that my co-blogger Pete Drum found when looking
through our newly indexed Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog
<http://www.claytoncramer.com/gundefenseblog/blogger.html>;:

Meanwhile, the single “lawful and justifiable” use of a firearm
reported among Minnesota’s 42,189 permit holders over the past four
years did not involve self-defense or efforts to stop a crime, but
rather a Wabasha County man who drew complaints about target
shooting near someone’s property but faced no charges.

We make no pretenses of catching every incident that gets reported in
the media, but we have two examples (here
http://www.claytoncramer.com/gundefenseblog/2005_01_01_archive.html#110568025829747702
and here
http://www.claytoncramer.com/gundefenseblog/2004_04_01_archive.html#108106091795004482)

of clear-cut defensive uses by Minnesota carry permitholders that were
reported–and the Star-Tribune couldn’t find these?

Labels: gun rights

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !