By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
State preemption laws, which place sole authority for regulating firearms in the hands of state legislatures, have been popular for several years, with more than 40 states having such statutes on the books.
Preemption prevents local municipalities and county governments from creating a patchwork of local ordinances which may conflict with one another, and allow too much authority over a constitutional right to be abused by local politicians who may dislike firearms.
Right now in Minnesota—home state of Democrat Gov. Tim Walz, who campaigned last year as Kamala Harris’ running mate—KARE News is reporting that a coalition of local politicians including the mayors of Minneapolis, St. Paul, Bloomington and Rochester, the state’s four largest cities, are lobbying state lawmakers to allow them to adopt their own laws.
According to the report, “there does not appear to be enough support in the divided legislature for a repeal of the preemption law.”
TGM first reported on the effort earlier this month.
Attacks on preemption laws by local politicians are nothing new. In municipalities where Democrats are in control—in Minnesota’s case politicians allied with the Democrat Farm Labor (DFL) party—they want to create their own gun laws. Typically, the more restrictive, the better where such efforts are concerned.
Out in Washington state, where preemption has been on the books for decades, mayors from Seattle, Tacoma and other municipalities have also been pressuring the legislature in Olympia for several years to ditch preemption. The only state where such a law has been repealed is Colorado.
The KARE report notes that Republican Rep. Paul Novotny, co-chair of the House Public Safety committee, has stated his caucus is in no mood to erode the preemption statute.
“We feel the preemption law is important to keep there from being a patchwork of city ordinances across the state,” Novotny reportedly stated. “We feel that the Second Amendment should not change depending on your zip code.”
The effort, which appears to be spearheaded by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, Rochester Mayor Kim Norton and Bloomington Mayor Tim Busse, is also getting resistance from the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus.
While Carter suggested to KARE that repealing preemption “could theoretically lead some municipalities to loosen their gun regulations, if they chose to do so,” that’s not likely to be the case in Minnesota with liberals calling the shots on gun regulations.
Critics worry about the checkerboard result of local control, where gun regulations would say one thing on one side of a street, and something different on the other side, in a different local jurisdiction.
At a recent press event at the state capitol, several mayors gathered and announced they are “all drafting gun control ordinances that can only take effect if the state legislature repeals” the law.
As things stand right now, they probably should not hold their collective breath.
