Here is an AP wire story with a little more background…..
By ASHLEY H. GRANT
Associated Press Writer
ST. PAUL (AP) – Minnesota’s handgun permitting law was declared unconstitutional Tuesday by a Ramsey County District judge in a lawsuit brought by several churches and other groups.
Judge John Finley said the Legislature violated the state constitution last year by attaching the so-called conceal and carry bill with a “totally unrelated bill relating to the Department of Natural Resources.”
The state constitution prohibits laws from embracing more than one subject.
“Our state has prided itself in its openness in all areas of government. … This basic Minnesota value is totally frustrated when the Legislature itself clearly violates the underpinnings of such a basic conscience-guided law and constitutional provision,” Finley wrote in his opinion.
Lawyers on both sides of the issue were scrambling Tuesday to determine the immediate impact of the ruling.
“That’s a real good question that I don’t think anyone knows at the moment,” said Joe Olson, a Hamline University Law School professor who is president of a group called Concealed Carry Reform Now.
Minnesota Attorney General Michael Hatch said he would appeal Finley’s ruling. Although he was still researching the opinion, Hatch believes permits obtained since the law was passed are still valid.
More than 22,000 Minnesotans have received handgun permits since the law was changed just over a year ago. That’s about twice as many permits as were issued the previous year, but well short of projections that as many as 90,000 permits would be issued in the first three years of the new law.
The old law gave sheriffs and police chiefs broad discretion to deny permits. The new law guarantees a permit to most adults who receive required training, pay an application fee and pass a background check.
Private building owners immediately began posting signs at public entrances banning handguns. But another provision of the law prevented private establishments from banning firearms in parking lots.
The church leaders filed their lawsuit a week before the law went into effect on May 28, arguing that it often uses its parking lot and leased buildings for worship services and that the church should be allowed to prohibit guns on its property.
Other congregations from different denominations across the region, as well as nonprofits and the city of Minneapolis joined the lawsuit.
Filed last fall in Ramsey County District Court, the lawsuit also contended the law infringed on property rights of the church groups and the city by allowing people with guns to intrude without permission and without compensation on the property owners.
And the church groups say the law violates their guarantees of religious freedom.
Olson said he wasn’t surprised by the ruling, but expected the state Court of Appeals might issue a stay in the case, meaning the new law would stay in place while the ruling is appealed.
“This case was destined for the Minnesota Supreme Court from the beginning,” Olson said. “The faster it gets there, the better.”
. Judicial activists know what’s best for you…. Yeah, right!
