Moved it to a slightly smaller committee which may be more innocuous sounding ...

Moved it to a slightly smaller committee which may be more innocuous sounding ...

8 members of the committee listed.

2 as co-authors and Debra Hilstrom was listed as a co-author prior, right?

Dear Jason,

Thank you for your comments and concerns about HF #953. This is an unwarranted restriction on our rights. It seriously erodes our second amendment rights by placing unreasonable restrictions on the transfer of firearms and it will shut down gun shows as we know them.

The bill will severely curtail legitimate trade in firearms by law-abiding citizens and adds fees to the permit to purchase applicant and the dealer. It eliminates the exemption for the transfer of antique firearms and sadly, it appears that it will make it illegal to give someone a weapon as a gift.

I will be opposing this bill and fight this ridiculous and unneeded legislation.

Ron Shimanski


State Rep. Ron Shimanski
District 18A
227 State Office Building
St. Paul, MN 55155
651-296-1534
800-920-5882

Representative [insert name here],

I am writing today to urge you to oppose House File 953, which is scheduled to be heard by the House Crime Victims/Criminal Records Division Committee on Friday.

This bill was designed to not only regulate the sale of firearms at gun shows, but to regulate the sale of firearms between law-abiding persons, all across Minnesota. We already have 4 other laws covering the sale of firearms to prohibited people. We don't need another one. As a whole, HF 953 will only affect law-abiding gun owners, and in no way keeps guns out of the hands of criminals.

A particularly troublesome provision in HF 953 creates a de facto registration system by requiring records of all transfers to be maintained by the state. These records would be made available to all authorities, including for use in “civil” cases, which are often brought by anti-gun government officials and are designed to damage or interfere with lawful commerce in firearms.

HF 953 is a direct attack on Minnesota’s gun rights. It also changes the transferee permit from a free background check to an accounting nightmare of actual cost + $5. One need only look at the discrepancies in the BCA Carry Permit report to see how easily the citizens could be inconvenienced and how out of control a single sheriff could get in charging fees.

This bill is pure harassment of legitimate gun owners and their non-commercial disposition of their property because, as a 2008 empirical study by Uiversity of Maryland criminologists demonstrates , it will have NO EFFECT on homicides or suicides and provide NO REDUCTION in firearm-related deaths (or violent crime, for that matter). All it will do is impose unnecessary deprivation of liberty, hassle, delay, and cost on Minnesota’s 1.5 million legitimate gun owners.

I ask your assistance in opposing this bill in Committee.

Thank you,

Paul Bxxxxxx