For the last three days there have been hearings at the Minnesota State Capitol building on the recently proposed gun control bills. So far gun rights advocates have greatly outnumber gun control advocates, which could make it seem as though gun rights advocates have a chance at shutting these bills down before they hit the floor. In an ideal world that would be the case but in the real world that’s not how things work. When you’re working within the political system you’re playing by the state’s rules, of which there is only one: the state gets to make the rules. Yesterday it became obvious that the hearings were nothing more than a sham, as hearing usually are. Gun control advocates were given disproportionately more time to speak and the author of the bill that was being discussed walked out when gun rights advocates were speaking.
It’s obvious that the people proposing this slew of bills have already made up their minds and that no amount of reasoning is going to dissuade them. Nobody should be surprised by this though, this is how statism works and why the political process is not an effective means of protecting your property.