Sgt. Mark Elliott of the Bloomington Police Department denied 37 dangerous individuals a permit to buy a gun in Minnesota last year.
He told members of the Minnesota House Public Safety and Crime Prevention Committee all were tracked through Minnesota's background check law, and did not show up in the federal database on crime that would deny them a permit.
Yet, the committee voted 10-7, with all Republicans voting to dismantle Minnesota's background check law and rely only on the federal system. The seven Democrats on the committee seemed shocked and in a state of disbelief that this committee would turn back Minnesota's law after this testimony.
The police and peace officers unions favored keeping it, so did the Minnesota chiefs of police.
Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R, Mazeppa, sponsored the repeal bill, ostensibly to remove an unfunded mandate, that he notes costs a sheriff's department 1/2 hour to 1 hour per week. City and county associations said the could not support it even though they oppose unfunded mandates because their local law enforcement officials would likely lose local control over the threat in their neighborhoods.
The thing that taxpayers and citizens should be most concerned about in this activity is not whether you agree we should do background checks or not, but politics (not sound information and facts) appear to be driving many of these very serious public safety decisions.
The bill, HF161, was referred to the House Civil Law committee, but I expect it will be rammed through that committee as well on a party line vote.
Here's a House Research summary of the bill, Public Safety Committee meeting minutes and the roll call vote of the committee. All "ayes" are Republicans, all "nays" are Democrats.
Sgt. Elliott's testimony begins at the 53 minutes 30 second mark of the audio. It gets better from there.
Here's a link to the audio tape of the meeting.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I'm afraid that this may be part of a broader pattern of legislators not listening to knowledgable local officials. Yesterday I attended the meeting of the House Government Operations and Elections Committee, at which they considered a major election administration bill, HF210. They received passionate testimony from the county and local election officials that the bill's provisions were not workable and that changes should be deferred until after the legislature had time to receive advice from a task force. The bill's author, Rep. Kiffmeyer, agreed on the surface with the notion of a task force, but indicated that it should be formed after her bill was passed. (Legislate first, ask the experts' advice afterward?) The bill was passed on a straight party line vote and sent off to the relevant finance committee.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the insight Max.
ReplyDeleteI understand you're trying to frame the question here in terms of whether one part of the government listens to another. However, the real issue here is not that they voted to rely upon federal gun control as opposed to local, but that the question of whether gun control is right or legal was never questioned.
ReplyDeleteKiffmeyer was Secretary of State for 8 years. She is hardly in need of 'experts' advice.
ReplyDeleteI am a head election judge at a precinct in St Paul - and have been for 8 years - where I have a college in the precinct. In 2008, I had a group of 'students' who walked in my polling place about 5 minutes before the polls closed. They had no ID of any kind - no student Id, no driver's license - nothing. But, another student from the college 'vouched' for the whole group and we had no choice but to let them vote. Now, I know damn well that this group of students were from outside of the precinct and probably from outside the state. What 21 year old 'student' doesn't have a driver's license or a student ID or any ID of any kind for a presidential election no less? Teenagers spend the better part of their 16th year of existence studying for their driver's exam just for the privelege of carrying around this little plastic card that allows them in to bars and buy booze when they turn 21, yet not one person in this group had any ID??? You can't tell me there wasn't something nefarious about this situation. And if this happened in my precinct, it probably happened in other precincts, as well. But, Minnesota Law says I had to let them vote and the only recourse is to document the incident and hope that Ramsey County investigates the student who vouched for the group to ensure they were legitimate voters. But, any investigation happens after the election and after the votes are counted and a winner is declared and so any fraudulent vote is counted in the vote totals. I brought this up with Ramsey County and the SoS office and to my knowledge, nothing came of this incident most likely because it wasn't investigated by the county. Our election system is very easy to game with same day registration. I have many other stories of nefarious circumstances from the 2004 election all relating to vouching and same-day registration.
What I saw in 2008 is the most egregious example of why we need to have IDs to register and to vote and why we should scrap same-day registration altogether. Until that election, I was an opponent of showing ID to vote. Ever since, I am a vocal proponent of requiring ID to both register and to vote.
You see, counterfeit votes, like counterfeit money, devalues all legitimate votes. Voter fraud disenfranchises us all just as counterfeit money devalues every dollar we have to our name. We may not see counterfeit money, but the cost of counterfeit money is passed along to the rest of us who use legal tender. The same is true for voting. Everyone thinks voting should be this casual, seamless, convenient process, easy process - and we do bend over backwards for the voter. But, it is hardly a disenfranchisement to require a voter to confirm who they say they are when the vote any more than it is to require a person to confirm their age when they buy a 12 pack of beer.
And Patrick's large group of young voters were from outside the precinct and "probably" from outside the state . . . and he knows this from 'instinct,' or . . . were they wearing skates and North Dakota hockey jerseys all with different names and numbers?
ReplyDelete