By Rep. Tom Hackbarth
This year, there were more than 10 gun control bills introduced in the Minnesota House of Representatives. These bills would redefine what firearms you could possess and describe under what conditions you could keep them.
If you own a “disqualified” firearm, your only options would be to render it inoperable, turn it over to law enforcement or sell it in another state. You also could register it, agree to let police come to your house to see if you were compliant and if you passed on, turn it over to the government as you were not allowed to pass it on or sell it.
Huge crowds showed up to rally against these measures. Hundreds of people showed up at the hearings. The people who were supporting these bills were outnumbered by at least 100-1.
These gun control bills were offered under the guise that they would bring down the crime rate and save lives. To the contrary, more people were murdered in Chicago – which has the most stringent gun laws in the nation – than were killed in Afghanistan in 2012.
One item of concern is the bill that offered a ban on the so-called “assault rifle” contained a definition so broad that it included sporting and target rifles. The AR 15 they are after is one of the most popular sporting rifles in the nation with over 10 million in ownership and they have proven to be a high-demand rifle here in Minnesota for predators, prairie dogs and competition shooting.
Even what is called the “Universal Background Check” or “Gun Show Loophole” could not survive the scrutiny. It has only been tried in three jurisdictions and one of those has the highest crime rate in the nation. The only way that this method can be enforced is thru a statewide registry.
A 2006 FBI study of criminals who attacked law enforcement officers found that within their sample, “None of the [attackers’] rifles, shotguns, or handguns … were obtained from gun shows or related activities.” Ninety-seven percent of guns in the study were obtained illegally, and the assailants interviewed had nothing but contempt for gun laws.
A Bureau of Justice Statistics report on “Firearms Use by Offenders” found that less than 1 percent of U.S. “crime guns” came from gun shows, with repeat offenders even less likely than first-timers to buy guns from any retail source. This 2001 study was based on interviews with 18,000 state prison inmates and is the largest such study ever conducted by the government.
When the hearings were all done, there was no appetite in the committee on either side for a ban of anything. Members indicated that it would really be tough to get any type of universal background check for private sales.
We are willing to discuss and bring a bill that would keep bad guys or people with mental illness from obtaining guns. Add to this, the increase of penalties to crimes involving guns and the classification of some crimes that make it more difficult to get guns once convicted, and there are areas that we can work on together.
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