Part II
A quick fisk of this:
Indented text is the original, unindented is mine. 

Once a Progressive State, Minnesota Is Now a Fief of the N.R.A.

By VERLYN KLINKENBORG

Published: September 5, 2006

A couple of weeks ago, I checked into a hotel in Bloomington, a Minneapolis suburb framed by the airport and the Mall of America. On the hotel door was a sign: “Firearms Banned on These Premises.”

Probably not.  It probably said "[name of hotel] BANS GUNS IN THESE PREMISES."  If it didn't say exactly that, guns aren't banned on the premises.  If it did say that, guns still aren't banned on the premises -- Minn. Stat. 624.714  is explict that landlords can't ban carry by their tenants or guests. 

The sign was up to reassure nervous types like Mr. Klinkenborg -- and, alas, it didn't fulfill its intended function.

The next day I drove to St. Joseph, an hour west of the Twin Cities, where I saw the same sign. Slowly the logical conclusion sank in. If firearms are banned on these premises, then they must not be banned in other places.

A keen eye for the obvious is rare on the editorial staff at the NYTimes; Mr. Klinkenborg should be congratulated.

Sure enough, a year ago the State Legislature passed a “concealed carry” law,

Well, no.  See this.  Permit holders can carry openly or discreetly; their call.  "Minnesota’s Personal Protection Act is a permit to carry law, not a conceal and carry law."   Please don't make me remind you again.   And this is the "law so nice we passed it twice" -- in April 2003 and May 2005.

which means that it’s legal to carry a concealed weapon if you have a permit.

As Seth points out in the comments, it's always legal to carry a concealed weapon if you have a legitimate permit to do so.  Even in New York City. 

So that no one misses the point, the Legislature has also turned Minnesota into what is called a “shall require” state.

"Shall require" state?  Somebody who actually knew something about it would know you probably meant "shall issue", but only got your information from a quick phone call to some of our local antis, who don't know much about the issue, either, and are more than happy to share their misinformation and disinformation.  Great reporting, Mr. Klinkenborg -- a tribute to the Gray Lady.

If you apply for a concealed-weapon permit, the local authorities must grant it to you.

Well, no, in a lot of ways.  You must be given a carry permit if you meet several objective qualifications, but the sheriff -- the issuing authority -- can deny you the permit if he's got substantial reasons to think you'll be dangerous if given a permit.  He's simply got to be able to produce evidence to defend his decision if he's challenged in court.

In most counties in Minnesota, there are quite literally no denials in a given year.  Even in the relatively denial-happy Ramsey County, they run around 3% -- and the sheriff is determined to be wrong to have denied those in about half the cases.

I asked one of the state coalitions opposed to these laws

Well, there's your problem right there.  You're not going to get much information from Judy Fust of the astroturf "Citizens for a Safer Minnesota," a small bunch who have been given hundreds of thousands of dollars from the anti-gun Joyce Foundation to simulate a grassroots "coalition."  She's a nice lady, more or less, but she really doesn't know much about the issue, other than that she's opposed to commonsense, modern, mainstream "shall require" -- oops:  "shall issue" handgun permit laws.

whether it would attack them in the Legislature this year. The answer was no.

"Doctor, Doctor -- it hurts when I do this." 

"Don't do that."

Even Judy's tame legislators, like Nora Slawik, have realized that with they sky not falling, they won't be able to demagogue the issue into repeal.  Hell, I could have told them that -- and I did:  no state has even come close to repealing a modern, manstream, commonsense "shall require" -- make that "shall issue" -- permit law.

It is too busy trying to defeat a “shoot first” bill, which would give gun owners the right to fire away instead of trying to avoid a confrontation.

Well, no; obviously, you haven't read the Cornish bill.  I have.  You're wrong.  It wouldn't change anything about the requirement that a person claiming self-defense must be a "reluctant participant," somebody who is not an aggressor in the confrontation.  And it wouldn't even apply to most confrontations -- only those very few where the person defending himself (or another innocent party) were in imminent danger of death or grave bodily harm.  Look it up.

Facts are such . . . awkward things, aren't they?

The way I see it, Minnesota is only one step away from requiring every citizen to carry a gun and use it when provoked.

Yes, Mr. Klinkenborg, but that's just your lack of vision and presence of hyperbole and hysteria.  In fact, the majority of eligible citizens (and non-citizen permanent legal residents, who are eligibile, too) in Minnesota have -- as is their right -- chosen not to get permits.  Which is fine -- it should be their choice. Right now, we've got just about 40,000 permit holders in a state with just about 4,000,0000 residents.  The number's growing, but there's nobody advocating for making it mandatory.  I don't know if there's a more visible advocate for carry permit training than I am -- google for "carry permit training" or "carry permit training in Minnesota" -- and what I've been saying for years is that getting training and taking out a carry permit is something that a responsible adult should consider as part of his or her self-protection strategy, and that puts me very much in the mainstream.

It should be a choice; why does the idea of choice bother you so much? 

There are some other twists to these laws. A person carrying a concealed weapon cannot be banned from a public building, even if it’s a library full of kids.

Yup.  Making public places victim disarmament zones is bad policy and bad politics, and we've very few such in Minnesota.  Feature, not bug.

Churches have succeeded in keeping guns out of the pews,

Actiually, the vast majority of churches haven't chosen to ban their members from carrying firearms for their own protection; it's only a very few.  In some cases, in fact, the ministers not only carry for their own protection, but encourage their members to -- I know; I've trained several such ministers. 

but they’re having to fight another court battle to keep them out of the parking lot. The application for a concealed-weapon permit appears to have been created by people who believe the real threat in carrying a gun is the loss of privacy entailed in filling out the form. Yet it isn’t possible for a member of the public to find out who has received a permit and may, in fact, be packing heat.

As opposed, Mr. Klinkenborg, to Ohio, where "journalists" can get access to the permit holder database, and at least one "journalist" has published it for the convenience of the stalkers and abusive exes of women who have taken out permits for their self-protection. 

Do you really support a "Stalker's Right to Know" Act? 

This is what I’d expect of Florida, which recently passed a “shoot first” — also called a “shoot the Avon lady” — bill.

A gross mischaracterization, worthy of a full-tilt-boogie fisking of its own.  Short form: while "stand your ground" language is, in one form or another, in effect in many states (including Minnesota, for when you're in your home), we've got a sum total of Avon ladies shot by permit holders as, well, zero.  You could call it a "shoot the idiotic New York Times editorial writer" bill, too, if you want to try to frighten yourself . . . even though it would be nothing of the sort. 

Untwist your undies, Mr. Klinkenborg.  It'll be okay.  The only thing you're in danger of in all of this is embarrassment.

I’d expect it of Texas too. But Minnesota? I grew up thinking of Minnesota as a socially progressive state.

Self-defense is one of those things that, it seems to me liberals and conservatives can and should agree on, and -- as a matter of fact, not opinion -- the Minnesota Personal Protection Act would not have passed without votes from several liberal DFLers in 2003 or 2005 . . . and, in fact, the number of liberal/progressive DFLer senators who had seen that commonsense, mainstream, "shall issue" carry permit laws work in Minnesota, and voted for it, went up in 2005. 

After all, it was home of the D.F.L. — the Democratic Farmer Labor Party — and a place where local control and common sense had strong roots. Like my family in Iowa, Minnesotans were gun owners because they hunted pheasants and rabbits and deer. But then I’m thinking of a time when the leadership of the National Rifle Association resembled a band of merry sportsmen and not the paranoid cabal it is today. Whether this was also a time when a legislator could vote his conscience, and not his gun lobbyist’s orders, I was too young to know.

*Yawn.*  Back when you were a kid, M. K., Minnesota didn't even require a permit for an adult to carry a handgun if he -- or she -- wanted to. 

Now, there's more restrictions -- age limits, background checks, forbidden places, alcohol restrictions, training requirements -- and now you get upset?  Wnat's wrong with this picture?

I hate to mention it, but when you vacation in Vermont, it's just like Minnesota used to be -- no permit is required, or available; in Vermont, you -- and others -- can choose to carry a handgun for self-defense without so much as notifying any authority, much less applying for a permit.  When you're off in New Hampshire, permits are easily available.  When you visit Connecticut, ditto.  When you -- well, you get the point:  there are 40 states that have modern, commonsense, "shall issue" carry laws; it's the mainstream, not the exception. 

I grew up hunting and shooting, and I still own two rifles (a .22 and a .270) and two shotguns (a 20-gauge and a 12-gauge, to be specific). When I was young, I expected that I would own guns when I grew up because I enjoyed hunting and I liked the good hunters I knew — as I still do.

But to me, owning guns and knowing how to use them properly was part of a civic bargain. I would leave the police work to the police, and they would leave the squirrel hunting to me. The notion that 38 states would have “concealed carry” laws in 2006 would have seemed insane, a regression to a more primitive idea of who we are.

Wrong again, Mr. Klinkenborg.  Again:  48 states have some form of carry permits, including your own New York.  40 states have modern, mainstream, commonsense "shall issue" laws like my own Minnesota, where permits are issued based on objective criteria, rather than -- as in your NYC -- political connections, campaign contributions, bribery, or arbitrary decisions of unelected bureaucrats.

Yes, there are still eight states that have bureaucrats-know-best carry permit laws, and two that don't permit citizens handguns for self-defense at all, and among the "may issue" states are New York and California.  But please consider giving up your bicoastal chauvinism; in what you apparently think of as flyover land, it's just this side of universal for people to be able to carry handguns for self-defense.  And, as one of my commentators pointed out, that includes all of the Continental US states that border on the Pacific, except for "may issue" California.

And, as I do keep pointing out, the sky hasn't fallen.

The N.R.A. would argue that society has changed since those innocent days. But society hasn’t changed nearly as much as the N.R.A. has — or our ideas about the balance of individual and collective rights.

The NRA would, I hope, point out that for most of American history, carry permits were not required; self-defense was considered a fundamental right so obvious it almost never needed to  be pointed out (sort of like breathing), and that there are no "collective rights" in the US Constitution.  Rights belong to individuals.

Every concealed weapon, with very few exceptions, is a blow against the public safety. The new gun laws in Minnesota take away local discretion over concealed-weapon permits, and they cost the local authorities plenty too.

Actually, the "local authorities" -- the sheriffs -- are making a lot of money on their carry permit program.  They take in $100 per permit application, and it typicall takes them less than $20 to do a background check and mail out a permit.

But there’s a bigger problem. By focusing so obsessively on an individual’s rights — in this case, the purported individual right to bear arms in the library — all other rights are shoved aside. Police departments are forced to grant concealed-weapon permits to individuals who have almost none of the training and certainly none of the restrictions that police officers have.

Actually, civilians have more restrictions on the use of force -- look it up.  But, sure, civilians have different training and different rules than police officers because -- and forgive me for belaboring the obvious -- because an armed civilian isn't a police officer.  Cops carry handguns to use in the enforcement of the law, for the general welfare; permit holders, like me, carry firearms for self-defense.  Most of the time, of course, we don't need the guns, anymore than, at home, we need the fire extinguishers we keep handy. 

That's a feature. not a bug. Oh, and just to keep the facts straught:  in Minnesota, police departments don't issue the permits; the sheriffs do.  Didn't you do any research on this before you relieved yourself of your pre-formed opinions?

What’s worse, by granting this right to individuals, the law strips the public of its right to occupy public spaces without the threat of being shot.

Excuse me?  Aren't you aware that the  places like Chicago and DC -- where citizens are forbidden to carry handguns to protect themselves -- are where innocent people are most likely to be shot? Aren't you aware that, even in the majority of "shall issue" states, almost all of the people shot in public places are shot by people who were illegally carrying handguns?  The threat doesn't come from permit holders, Mr. K.

The police are trained to handle guns.

So are permit holders.  The training is different, of course, because self-defense is simpler (scarier, but simpler, by and large) than law enforcement.  Cops, for example, have to have extensive training on when and how they can use the "continuum of force" in affecting an arrest when the threat isn't of immediate death or great bodily harm; civilians can -- and I have -- avoid the complications simply by not trying to affect arrests.  Permit holders very, very rarely perform citizens arrests, and then only under the most unamgibuous of circumstances. 

The criminals know they’re not supposed to have them but find them easy to get, thanks to the N.R.A. Let them fight it out. No one is safer if gun-carrying civilians believe their rights entitle them to pretend they’re cops.

Thankfully, though, the First Amendment is safe when arrogant editorialists ignorantly or willfully try to blur the distinction between armed civilians and cops in a cheap, ill-researched, ill-thought-out editorial. 

But such arrogant ignorance and/or dishonesty does cheapen the public discourse, Mr. Klinkenborg.  You should be ashamed of yourself.  But you're probably not, alas.

Sometimes I think the N.R.A. isn’t really about guns at all. It’s about making certain that the public — our political and civil society, in other words — has no ability to limit the rights of an individual. That is really what the logic of the “concealed carry” and “shall require” and “shoot first” laws says.

Guns make a perfect test case, because the end result is an armed cohort that is very prickly about its personal rights. The N.R.A. has armed the thousands of Minnesotans who applied for a permit once the “concealed carry” law passed. But it has disarmed the public by making sure that legislators will no longer vote for gun laws that protect the rest of us.

Not that the facts matter to you, of course, but if they did, you'd have noticed that the Minnesota Citizens Personal Protection Act was passed here -- twice in two years -- not because of the NRA, which was only marginally involved, but of the tireless efforts of a network of grassroots organizations and individuals, centered around Professor Joe Olson's GOCRA/CCRN.  If you're going to look at the nonlegislators who advocated tirelessly for carry reform and won afer ten years of advocacy, look at him, at David Gross, at Alfred Fingulin, John Caile, Tim Grant, Lonn Hass, and so forth.  Heck, I was involved, too.

But don't let the facts interfere with your opinions; they obviously haven't informed them.