For a long time, I tended to think of Los Angeles and San Francisco as the epicenter of liberal stupidity. At the time, that was mostly true, though Chicago and New York gave them a run for their money. These days, though, while those cities are still very far left and, by extension, anti-gun, cities like Portland and Minneapolis are really showing themselves to be the true epicenters of moronic thinking.
Speaking of Minneapolis, we all know that the city council has now passed a local gun control ordinance, despite Minnesota still having a preemption law on the books. Despite language that says it won’t be enforced until after preemption goes away, the law is still illegal. You can’t just try to go around state law by breaking it, but just delaying the onset of it.
But, while the city council passed it, Mayor Jacob Frey still had to sign it, and there might have been a slim hope that he’d recognize the problem and refuse to do so. Not much of a chance, mind you, but one slim enough that it was theoretically possible, but not much more than that.
Now that slim chance is null and void.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Wednesday signed a gun control ordinance that the City Council passed unanimously last week, but is expected to face legal challenges due to state laws.
The ordinance includes a ban on assault-style weapons, large-capacity magazines and ghost guns and would restrict firearms in some public places. Its future is unclear, though, because state preemption laws prevent cities from creating their own gun ordinances.
“The concept of gun violence — it is not abstract. It’s not theoretical. It has a real impact on families in our city, and because it impacts the people that we represent, our family members that we care deeply about, we at the city level should have the ability to act affirmatively to prevent these kinds of unnecessary deaths from happening in the future,” Frey said during a press conference on Wednesday.
The city is likely deluding itself about how the language will help it withstand challenges, but we’ll have to see on that one. I’m not sure I trust Minnesota courts enough to bet money on being right.
Still, I find this bizarre fetish of going around preemption more than a little stupid. Even if you believe that gun control is a good thing and works, you’ve got to acknowledge that there’s no way that a local ordinance is going to accomplish a damn thing. Anyone caught breaking such an ordinance will be charged with a misdemeanor, which means not only will they do minimal jail time for breaking that law, but they’re not prohibited from buying guns afterward. All anyone would have to do is leave town to buy a prohibited gun and bring it back into the city. That’s especially true with magazines, which aren’t serialized, have no background check requirements, and can be mailed to most addresses in the country easily enough. Just a P.O. Box in the suburbs would be enough to sidestep that little issue.
Literally nothing at all will happen, especially among the criminal element in the city.
Nothing will change.
As Cam pointed out when the vote happened, if there are enough votes to repeal preemption, there will likely be enough votes to do all of this at the state level, and while that won’t work out any better, it still means there’s literally nothing to gain by doing this now.
All Minneapolis is doing is what St. Paul did, which is flex that they’re good little anti-gunners so everyone knows which side they’re on should they decide to seak higher office.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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