15.10 Sec. 31. Minnesota Statutes 2008, section 97B.045, subdivision 1, is amended to read:
15.11 Subdivision 1. Restrictions. (a) A person may not transport a firearm in a motor
15.12vehicle unless the firearm is:
15.13(1) unloaded and in a gun case expressly made to contain a firearm, and the case
15.14fully encloses the firearm by being zipped, snapped, buckled, tied, or otherwise fastened,
15.15and without any portion of the firearm exposed;
15.16(2) unloaded and in the closed trunk of a motor vehicle; or
15.17(3) a handgun carried in compliance with sections 624.714 and 624.715.
15.18(b) Notwithstanding paragraph (a), a person may transport an unloaded, uncased
15.19firearm, excluding a pistol as defined in paragraph (c), in a motor vehicle while at a
15.20shooting range, as defined under section 87A.01, subdivision 3, where the person has
15.21received permission from the lawful owner or possessor to discharge firearms; lawfully
15.22hunting on private or public land; or travelling to or from a site the person intends to hunt
15.23lawfully that day or has hunted lawfully that day, unless:
15.24(1) within the seven-county metropolitan area as defined in section 473.121,
15.25subdivision 4;
15.26(2) within an area where the discharge of a firearm has been prohibited under section
15.27471.633;
15.28(3) within the boundaries of a home rule charter or statutory city with a population
15.29of 2,500 or more;
15.30(4) on school grounds as regulated under section 609.66, subdivision 1d; or
15.31(5) otherwise restricted under section 97A.091, 97B.081, or 97B.086.
15.32(c) For the purposes of this section, a "pistol" includes a weapon designed to be fired
15.33by the use of a single hand and with an overall length less than 26 inches, or having a
15.34barrel or barrels of a length less than 18 inches in the case of a shotgun or having a barrel
15.35of a length less than 16 inches in the case of a rifle:
16.1(1) from which may be fired or ejected one or more solid projectiles by means
16.2of a cartridge or shell or by the action of an explosive or the igniting of flammable or
16.3explosive substances; or
16.4(2) for which the propelling force is a spring, elastic band, carbon dioxide, air or
16.5other gas, or vapor.
16.6"Pistol" does not include a device firing or ejecting a shot measuring .18 of an inch, or
16.7less, in diameter and commonly known as a "BB gun," a scuba gun, a stud gun, or nail gun
16.8used in the construction industry or children's pop guns or toys.

473.121 DEFINITIONS.
Subdivision 1.Terms.
For the purposes of this chapter, the terms defined in this section have the meanings given them in this section, except as otherwise expressly provided or indicated by the context.
Subd. 4.Metropolitan county.
"Metropolitan county" means any one of the following counties: Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott or Washington.

Rep.David.Dill@house.mn,
Rep.Tony.Cornish@house.mn,
Rep.Marty.Seifert@house.mn
date Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 12:08 PM
subject Modifications to proposed Casing requirements change sell Metro residents short and create a BAD precedent


Gentlemen,

while your aims may be pure with respect to HF128 which is now on page 15-16 of a larger game and fish bill (HF)1238, I am greatly concerned by precedent and unintentional consequences of this bill.

I am particularly disturbed by the following concessions:
unless:
15.24(1) within the seven-county metropolitan area as defined in section 473.121,
15.25subdivision 4;
15.26(2) within an area where the discharge of a firearm has been prohibited under section
15.27471.633;
15.28(3) within the boundaries of a home rule charter or statutory city with a population
15.29of 2,500 or more;
15.30(4) on school grounds as regulated under section 609.66, subdivision 1d; or
15.31(5) otherwise restricted under section 97A.091, 97B.081, or 97B.086.

In essence, you're setting up two types of places in respect to firearm regulation: Rural and Urban. There are plenty of legal places to hunt within the Metro counties. Hennepin is huge and Washington County goes all the way to Wisconsin. Dakota has some large areas and there's a lot of private land to hunt.

State gun laws, which pre-empt municipalities, should be targeted but not overly specific and not based on arbitrary factors which the law abiding gun owner could suddenly find him or herself in violation. The population issue is such an issue. one single birth or death could change the population after all.

For comparison, I urge you to look at North Dakota's Carry permit laws. With the inclusion of "public gatherings" and its definition by possible crowd size, they have place a large burden of doubt over whether carry anywhere is legal and opened a Pandora box for anti-gun legislation (which is thankfully rare in ND) ..

I urge you to insist that these camel's nose under the tent flap type modifications be removed. I realize that could kill this bill. But this bill and its unintended consequences could lead us farther down the road to divide, regulate, and conquer.

Respectfully,

Paul Blincow

As Rep Cornish is aware, Gun rights are not a strictly hunting or sporting issue for me and many of the gun rights crowd.

--
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

Well, I'm speechless . . .

Which, let's face it, is rare for me.

In principle, I like the initial idea behind HF128, which has now been incorporated into HF 1238. As a hunter, it would be kind of convenient to be able to unload my rifle and just put it on the back seat if I want to drive from one area to another; casing it is a mild annoyance.

Okay . . .

But conceding to the antigun hysterics that this is okay, say, when hunting up around Garrison but should be criminal out in Lake Elmo? Has the problem with criminals commiting crimes with guns somehow become a question of what county a law-abiding hunter is in ?

Look -- for as long as I've been involved in the self-defense rights movement, there's been an ongoing campaign by the anti-gun folks to make gun owners in the metro second-class citizens. It's been defeated, over and over again . . .

. . . and do we really want to consider doing that for, at most, a minor convenience for outstate hunters who don't feel like bringing a case on their ATVs?

I mean, like, huh?

Please: let's either strip this metro-area exception out of HF 1238, or just kill the whole idea.

Could you get back to me ASAP? This is awfully worrisome.

--
Joel Rosenberg
http://twincitiescarry.com
http://joel-rosenberg.com
612.501.8229

You are completely wrong on this bill and take a chance of killing it. It does not take away anything you had before. It's the best attempt we can make to get the better deal for hunters statewide.

It was not hidden by any sense. It was on line and in the files for review. Nothing was hidden. There has always been a provision in there for some exceptions. There is a rifle / shotgun zone in the state. WE can't fire rifles in deer season down here, but we don't scream discrimination. We have cities where you can archery hunt but not with rilfes or shotguns. SOmetimes there are differences and this is one of them. But it benefits the vast majority of hunters. It's not a "rights" thing. It's a geographical thing

Rep Cornish

Rep Cornish,

I had to go and re-read my original e-mail . When I did so, I found some embarrassing typos but nowhere did I say anything about bad intentions or agendas on the part of the authors of this bill.

Quite frankly, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The Liberal Metro DFL anti-gunners and the Joyce Foundation funded Citizens for a Safer Minnesota have been trying to convince the public that the Metro counties are "specially" dangerous because of law-abiding people with guns for years. It has been their Golden Fleece since Howard Orenstein and Wes Skoglund first got elected. They have tried to add it as an amendment to every gun bill since 1989

Now we have Pro-gun legislation paving their path for them. I think that's a very poor concession to make and an expensive trade-off. I realize that risks killing bill and I don't make these comments lightly.

Thank you for your continued attention to our rights,

If they succeed with this bill, they put a stake into the heart of the state's preemption law and we risk having a patchwork of carry laws for each municipality in the state which will effectively end the realistic practice of carry in Minnesota.

You are completely wrong on this bill and take a chance of killing it. It does not take away anything you had before. It's the best attempt we can make to get the better deal for hunters statewide.

Rep Cornish

All sorts of ideas were tried. But, if we would have had a law that said, "Only Applicable While Hunting" would the trap and clay and range enthusiasts cried foul also?

Remember the concessions we made on the "conceal and carry" of which I was an author? We made numerous exceptions to get it thru. I hated the one on "Posting Businesses" but we did it to get it thru. It caused all sorts of problems for people carrying down main st, wondering which store they could go into and which one they could not. We made exceptions further about schools and carrying in this bill we passed.

What Im saying, is we got the bill passed. Something we've tried for years to do by making exceptions. They were hard to take at the time, but it would not have passed and still didn't if you remember until we tricked the Senate into accepting it by adding my DNR provision onto the bill.

You aren't giving up "rights" here. All you're giving up is the uncased provision in certain circumstances.

Cornish

If they succeed with this bill, they put a stake into the heart of the state's preemption law and we risk having a patchwork of carry laws for each municipality in the state which will effectively end the realistic practice of carry in Minnesota.