Minnesota isn't the most anti-gun state in the nation by any stretch. They've got a rich outdoor tradition, and that translates to at least some support for gun ownership. However, the state seems to have way too many Fudds to actually respect gun rights. As long as their hunting weapons are left alone, they're good.
Self-defense guns? Those face more gun control, and a recent case showed it didn't work.
An 18-year-old Saint Paul man, whom I described as a teen for intentional reasons I'll get to in a bit, entered a guilty plea on weapons charges.
An 18-year-old man has pleaded guilty to owning a machine gun after an investigation at a St. Paul home in March recovered a cache of illegally possessed weapons, including a ghost gun.
The teenager was 17 years old when Ramsey County authorities found the "ghost guns, automatic machine guns, multiple extended magazines and enough ammunitions for multiple drive-by shootings."
...
The teenager was charged with 12 felony counts all relating to the cache of weapons investigators found during their search. He pleaded guilty Friday in juvenile court to one count of owning a machine gun.
Now, "enough ammunition for multiple drive-by shootings" doesn't tell us much. Theoretically, two rounds are enough for multiple drive-by shootings, just not very "good" ones.
However, he had ammo.
He also had multiple firearms that are clearly shown in photographs at the above link. These almost all fall under the category of a pistol. The only one that doesn't is a handgun with a forward grip on it, turning it into an Any Other Weapon by NFA standards.
The machine gun thing appears to be the result of full-auto sears added to the handguns.
Now, the reason the whole pistol thing matters is that Minnesota has gun control laws regarding handguns. While rifles don't fall under their permit-to-purchase laws, pistols do. The same is true of the state's universal background check laws. So-called ghost guns are also illegal in the state.
Then we have the federal laws that make it so he couldn't have lawfully purchased one even if he'd have gone through those steps.
If the laws worked as designed, this kid would never have any of these firearms.
I referred to him as a "teen" above simply because so often, the anti-gunners do the exact same thing, but at his age at the time of arrest, he couldn't purchase anything lawfully. None of what he had on hand was lawfully obtained. Nothing at all. He broke every gun control law designed to keep guns out of the hands of "teens" and did it multiple times.
And you're out of your mind if you think he's the only one who has done so.
Minneapolis and Saint Paul both have issues with gangs, like pretty much every other large urban center in the country. Where there is gang culture, there will be guns in hands that aren't supposed to have them. This happened in the most pro-gun states and the most anti-gun states. The laws on the books are irrelevant.
Let's also understand that when gang culture is present, there will be people who partake of that culture even if they're not members of a gang. They'll take the inane idea of "honor" that exists among these groups and internalize it, then act accordingly when they feel they've been disrespected, which leads to shootings.
That means guns are going to be in demand, and where there's a demand, someone will provide a supply. That's just nature.
Despite Minnesota's Fudds being convinced that gun control was good so long as their hunting rifles are left alone, it hasn't actually done anything at all. No one should be shocked by that, either.
