Minnesota is very much a blue state these days. However, it’s not an overly anti-gun state. They have fairly modest gun control restrictions in place.

Lawmakers seem to want to change that, but the gun control being considered is still mild compared to states like New York, California, or New Jersey.

Still, that doesn’t mean these are good measures, either.

Minnesota Democrats are working on several proposals this legislative session that they believe will help curb gun violence.

They’re starting with four gun safety proposals and bills designed to keep guns out of the hands of people who pose a risk to the public. Those include a red flag law, expanded background checks for firearms sales, a locking requirement, and a requirement to promptly report lost or stolen firearms.

So, like I said, not the overall worst gun control measures we’ve seen, but not exactly good news.

Especially since none of these are really going to do much.

First, we have red flag laws. As we’ve seen elsewhere, such as California, Colorado, and New York, red flag laws aren’t really going to do very much to stop things like mass shootings. They haven’t yet, so far as we can tell, and there’s no reason to suspect they will.

Granted, these laws won’t impact most people, the truth is that it’s still an infringement on both people’s Second Amendment rights and their right to due process.

Then we’ve got expanded background checks, which is basically universal background checks. The problem is that these measures don’t impact black market gun sales. They don’t actually impact anything except law-abiding citizens trying to sell their guns to other law-abiding citizens. This idea that they reduce crime would be hilarious were they not serious when they talk about it.

Even then, it’s still kind of funny.

Additionally, we’ve got the “locking requirement,” which is a euphemism for mandatory storage. That’s generally an unenforceable law and even if it’s enforced, it’s usually going to be enforced against someone who is already a victim. As a result, this is one of those measures that many will think sounds great, but then feel awful when they see it enforced down the road.

Finally, we’ve got the proposal to require lost or stolen guns be reported to the police. Brilliant.

So…how are you going to enforce this one? How are you going to know when a gun was stolen or lost? How are you going to document when someone lost it or realized it was stolen? Seriously, I’ve got guns in my safe I haven’t even looked at in months. I only know they haven’t been taken because there are a bunch of boxes piled up in front of that particular safe.

My point is that it’s virtually impossible to tell when someone realized a weapon is gone. That means this measure is virtually impossible to enforce as well.

So we’ve got four bills that won’t do anything up for consideration in Minnesota. Color me unimpressed.

Granted, these measures are better than recently passed laws in New Jersey and New York, but they’re still nothing but a way to jam up good, decent, law-abiding folks while doing nothing to deal with the criminals that represent the real issues in the state.