The St. Paul (Minnesota) City Council recently introduced an “assault-weapons” ban ordinance, which would ban possession of semi-automatic rifles within city limits.
St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter (D) said this is the “bare minimum of what we ought to be doing” at the ordinance’s introduction in an October 22 city council meeting.
“The proposal is entirely performative, as Minnesota has statewide preemption for firearm laws and the ordinance would be unenforceable without approval by the state legislature,” reported the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (ILA).
The city will reportedly take up the proposal’s second reading on November 5, but it has yet to be added to the official calendar. A third reading and potential final passage is also reportedly scheduled for November 12.
Even with no mechanism of enforcement and immediate invalidity under state law, the city council proposed this ordinance anyway. This, once again, shows that anti-gun politicians do not hold the law in the same regard as law-abiding gun owners do.
The actions from the Minnesota capital come on the heels of Gov. Tim Walz’s (D) call for a special session of the state legislature to pass a similar host of gun-control measures, including an “assault-weapons” ban.
Of course, “assault weapon,” “large-capacity magazine” and other similar terms are dishonest political inventions created by gun controllers. Such intentionally misleading designations can mean whatever is convenient at the time, or impact whatever firearms and accessories they can fit into a ban list.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Heller (2008) that the Second Amendment protects “arms ‘in common use at the time’ for lawful purposes like self-defense.” With more than 30 million semi-automatic rifles that could fall under the often ambiguous designation of “assault weapon” in circulation throughout the country, according to data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), these ”arms” are clearly in common use.
As for the impact of such a ban, it’s important to look at the data following the federal ban that was enacted in 1994 and remained in effect for a decade. A congressionally mandated study found that the ban had a negligible effect, if any, on crime. Despite this, many in Minnesota continue to virtue signal at the cost of law-abiding Minnesotans’ freedom.
