Mandatory storage and mandatory reporting laws are mostly just ways to try and penalize people who find out they're victims. Both generally involve people being penalized for someone taking their property and misusing it, but anti-gunners love these laws, probably because of how much riskier and more expensive it makes just being a gun owner.

Minnesota's anti-gunners in the legislature, which supposedly have a modest agenda this year, tried to pass those last year. They were unsuccessful. So, as part of that modest agenda, they're making another run at it this year.

Gun safety advocates are urging the state legislature to pass two measures this year that would implement new rules for firearms owners on how to secure their guns and what to do if they go missing.

Protect Minnesota, a local group working to end gun violence, hosted a news conference Wednesday to outline its legislative agenda, which includes a safe storage law and a mandatory reporting requirement for lost or stolen guns. The two proposals were tabled last year as the focus became expanding background checks and implementing a "red flag" law—both of which cleared the DFL-controlled capitol after a years-long effort. 

"Those are all going to make our community safer. But we know that when we're losing almost 600 people here in our state to gun violence, we haven't yet done enough to curb this epidemic," said Maggiy Emery, executive director of Protect Minnesota.

Under the first proposal, all guns would need to be locked and unloaded, separate from ammunition, when it's not being carried or used by the person authorized to have it. Another bill would require gun owners to report to law enforcement lost or stolen firearms within 48 hours of realizing they're missing. 

Rep. Kaohly Vang Her, DFL-St. Paul called the proposals "common sense" and said she believes notifying police of missing guns can curb straw purchases, or when somebody legally buys a gun for someone else who is prohibited from owning one, like a person convicted of a felony.

Let's start with the whole "locked and unloaded, separate from ammunition, when it's not being carried or used by the person authorized to have it" bit.

Holy. Crap. That's. Stupid. Bad.

Locked, unloaded, and stored separately from ammunition is one of those things that sounds good to people who know literally nothing about self-defense. Yes, it may well be very safe to store a gun like that, but it's really not any safer than a properly stored loaded firearm is. Locked up is locked up, after all.

Requiring that the gun essentially be rendered unusable is only a smidge better than a requirement that they be disassembled for storage, but it's not a large smidge. 

See, if someone breaks into your home, you have seconds to access that gun before it's too late. Making people lock it up when it's not being "carried or used" means most people are going to keep it locked up so as to be in compliance with the law. They don't see it being handy while asleep as in use, after all.

So picture this: You wake up to the sound of glass breaking. You wait a moment to see if you hear anything else, not wanting to completely overreact over nothing. Faint voices filter up from elsewhere in the house and none of them are familiar. You pull out your small safe that you keep your handgun in. You fiddle with the combination, not having a lot of luck because your fine motor skills are shot due to the adrenaline coursing through your veins.

Finally, you get it. You pick up the gun and start to reach for the magazine when two armed men bust into your bedroom. Immediately, they point their guns at you and fire.

Sounds awful, right?

Well, that's what mandatory storage laws do, especially ones structured like this.

Now, let's talk about mandatory reporting laws for a moment. They're billed as a way to curb straw buys, but the truth of the matter is that straw buyers don't really worry about that sort of thing since straw buying is illegal in and of itself. They can just as easily say they didn't realize their gun was gone, thus bypassing this law entirely.

It's only the guys who are honest who are going to get jammed up over this, and they're not the threat.

Minnesota is just looking to crack down on lawful gun ownership and make it more of a hassle that it's worth to many people. That's all this is about and they're not even doing a great job at hiding it from us.