Looks That Way
But They Failed
By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Did Minnesota House Democrats conducting a hearing last month on two gun control bills—crafted in response to last year’s fatal shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis—try to squelch pro-Second Amendment testimony because it didn’t follow their narrative?
It appears that way, but they ultimately allowed Amy Swearer, a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, speak for two “throw-away minutes” and, as she stated on “X,” she “did not throw them away.”
Instead, Swearer told lawmakers on Feb. 24, in reference to parents of children who were killed or injured in the attack, “This is such a significant issue that we need to tell them the truth, and be honest with them about reality. And it’s a hard truth. And the hard truth is that it would not have mattered one bit whether or not the individual who shot at their children had a pistol grip or not a pistol grip, whether they had a barrel shroud or not a barrel shroud because we’re under some illusion that by banning pistol grips and barrel shrouds, somehow, when that same caliber of bullet is fired from the same length of barrel with the same muzzle velocity that this somehow would have caused less carnage or less trauma or made these children any less injured. And it’s a lie.
“It’s a lie we continue to repeat,” Swearer continued, “and we not only do that by the sort of delusion that it would have mattered, but we do so than by trying to pass laws that would, in return, scapegoat ordinary law-abiding Minnesotans and turn them into felons for possessing these firearms.
“The reality is,” she said, “the problem at Annunciation was not that this individual had a pistol grip or a barrel shroud, it is that this person bent on any amount of carnage had a firearm in the first place.”
Swearer pointed to lenient policies adopted in Minnesota which allow dangerous people to remain in public.
According to WFMD News, Swearer said in an interview, “I think really at the core of it, that’s what they wanted to avoid, to the extent that they could keep this focused on the Annunciation shooting, and to prevent people like myself from coming in and saying, well, first of all, these policies would not have prevented a single death.”
Swearer had prepared a 13-page document, complete with hyperlinks, which Democrats rejected, while they allegedly accepted statements from gun control proponents, which also included hyperlinks.
In her prepared statement, Swearer referred to HF 3433, which would ban future commercial sales and transfers of semi-auto firearms with features “arbitrarily deemed to turn the gun into an “’assault weapon.’”
She also referred to HF 3402, which would ban possession of so-called “large-capacity magazines” capable of holding more than 10 cartridges.
“Ordinary lawful Minnesotan gun owners are remarkably law-abiding and have done nothing to deserve this level of scapegoating,” Swearer wrote. “These bills threaten to turn countless peaceable Minnesotans into felons. Instead, Minnesota should focus on utilizing the tools already at its disposal to keep guns out of the hands of the small subset of repeat violent offenders responsible for the majority of gun violence in this state. Better yet, Minnesota’s public officials should focus on rescinding its many soft-on-crime policies that allow far too many violent offenders to terrorize local communities with near impunity.”
Later in her document, Swearer reminds lawmakers that the U.S. Supreme Court “has never reviewed a challenge to laws criminalizing the civilian possession of so-called assault weapons, including the federal prohibition on new sales of such weapons between 1994 and 2004. The Court is, however, almost certain to take up such a case in the next few terms. It is difficult to see how the Supreme Court (or any court) could uphold these types of prohibitions while also remaining faithful to District of Columbia v. Heller, McDonald v. Chicago, and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.”
She said semiautomatic rifles “are the exact type of bearable small arms protected by the Second Amendment for civilian possession and use.”
“There is no serious doubt that they constitute a firearm that is commonly possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, including self-defense,” she wrote.
Closing out the written statement, Swearer wrote, “Minnesota has nothing to gain from its endeavor to strip ordinary and peaceable citizens of their right to keep and bear many of the nation’s most commonly possessed semiautomatic firearms and standard capacity magazines… The state need only do a better job of protecting Minnesotans from the small subset of violent repeat offenders that currently prey upon them. It can start by re-evaluating the soft-on-crime policies that refuse to hold these offenders accountable, and that offer them a revolving door right out of jail every time they are detained for another serious offense.”
