Minnesota --(Ammoland.com)- What’s Happened So Far
Last week in the Minnesota House, anti-gun-rights extremist Rep. Michael Paymar gave up on his Punish Gun Owners Act, HF237.


Paymar, who chairs the Public Safety committee, acknowledged that he didn’t even have the votes to get his gun control agenda out of his own committee.


Rep. Paymar did manage to get a “compromise” bill passed out of committee — a bill hidden from the public until less than an hour before the hearing last Thursday. While GOCRA supports most of the provisions of HF285 (they were already in the GOCRA- and NRA-supported “Good bill” that Rep. Paymar refused to hear in committee), it does include one controversial provision:



HF285 requires the purchaser in a private sale of a pistol or sporting rifle, if the transaction takes place at a gun show, to have a permit to purchase or carry, and show that permit to the private seller.


  
While this is what most of us do anyway, it is still a step, though a small one, toward increased regulation of private sales.


What’s Next
Representative Paymar has vowed to reintroduce Universal Gun Registration as an amendment on the House floor. We need to make sure that Minnesota lawmakers know that we will not tolerate a vote for such an amendment. There is also the possibility that some of the “Good Bill” criminal control provisions that GOCRA supports will be amended on to his bill.


There is also a lot of room for things to change as the House and the Senate work to match up their bill, either by amendment, or in conference committees. We’ll be watching that closely.


We don’t know yet when Rep. Paymar’s bill will be heard in the full House. We’ll let you know as soon as we know.


What You Can Do
Starting Tuesday, it will be time to once again remind legislators that we’re watching, and that we won’t stand for any infringements. We’ll let you know when and how.


Membership premiums update
We’ve been swamped with all of the new memberships! THANK YOU! We are working as hard as we can to get the pins and patches out the door. We ran out of each; the pins are back in stock, and patches are on the way, so it won’t be long now.


Please forward this article to gun owners and civil rights supporters, and ask them to sign up at http://www.gocra.org/join.html