ST. PAUL – House Democrats approved three anti-gun bills this week which state Rep. Shane Mekeland, R-Clear Lake, said will do more to make criminals out of law-abiding citizens than crack down on violent criminals.
The three bills include new laws on storage, requirements for reporting stolen firearms, and a new “trigger activator” definition that may render some commonly used guns illegal. These latest proposals follow last year’s changes Democrats enacted regarding universal background checks and red flag confiscation orders.
Mekeland said the bill regarding reporting stolen firearms wrongly criminalizes a victim of a crime if they do not report a firearm theft within a government-prescribed period of time.
“This is more about taking down the Second Amendment one bill at a time than it is about public safety,” Mekeland said. “On the exact same day House Democrats introduced a bill with more storage restrictions for law-abiding gun owners, House Democrats also introduced a bill to repeal mandatory minimum sentences for violent crimes involving a firearm. On top of that, Democrats now want to make criminals out of crime victims themselves. It’s a totally unserious approach to the things that are actually driving violent crime.”
Mekeland indicated a better approach would be for our state to step up efforts to enforce existing laws, with prosecutors who are willing to fully charge violent criminals and courts that stop turning dangerous people back out on the street with a slap on the wrist.
“There are no real solutions in these Democrat-authored gun bills,” Mekeland said. “If you actually want solutions, we could start by actually enforcing the laws we already have in Minnesota instead of adding more laws that will only serve to trip up law-abiding citizens through back-door attacks on our cherished Second Amendment rights.”
After passing the House along party lines, the three bills are now in the hands of the Senate, where Democrats have a one-seat majority. Mekeland said that means a senator who currently faces first-degree felony burglary charges could cast deciding votes on bills undermining people’s ability to defend themselves during a home invasion.
The gun bills House Democrats approved this week include:
- H.F. 4300: Requires a person to store a firearm that is not in the person’s direct control or within reach in a gun safe, gun room, or unloaded with a locking device. There are criminal penalties for failing to comply with the firearm storage requirements.
- H.F. 601: Requires firearm owners to report the loss or theft of a firearm to the local law enforcement agency within 48 hours of its loss and creates a penalty if a person does not report the loss within that timeframe.
- H.F. 2609: Includes bipartisan language House Republicans propose to increase penalties on straw buyers of firearms, but also features a controversial provision regarding the definition of a “trigger activator” that may impact some commonly used guns and render them illegal.
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