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Fr. John+ 08/27/2011 12:27:00 PM
I find the necessary inclusion of a very small minority (Jews, who make up less that 1.5% of Americans nation-wide) as a 'titillation factor' for your Uber-liberal readership, (as the 'hook' for getting some to read this article) to be very close to what the DFL and other mind-mumbed robots consider 'profiling.' What if Mr. Rothman had been an African-American, but a Tea Partier. Whoo-boy! You could have gone to town with that one! (But why?)
The Second Amendment GUARANTEES the right to 'keep and bear arms.' End of story. But for those who WANT the Obamanation/Socialist Slagheap 'Paradise', such a thought is anathema. Then we look at the violence in Great Britain this summer, where no one but thugs and cops can have guns. Payback's a bitch, ain't it?
Statistics have shown, for DECADES, that when lawful citizens have guns, CRIME GOES DOWN. And THAT's the only thing about 'Minnesota Nice' that I applaud- not the delusionary psycho-sexual fantasies of the Uber-Liberal Multicultimetrosexaul crowd.
- Fr. John+
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Alnrn78 06/14/2011 10:50:00 PM
This article is way too long! it is filled with a lot of folksy conversation and almost no information regarding the title, Testing the gun show loophole. What a waste of time to read it! I got so bored I had to quit reading it 1/2 way through it.
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05/16/2011 10:15:00 PM
What an ass. The sellers are all foul mouthed, pear shaped, liver spotted, harley riding, bearded white bigots. No wonder liberals annoy us so much. You just want to push 'em down and take their lunch money and send 'em running home crying to mommy. What liberal rag did this pap run in? Yawn.
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Albert Nygren 08/15/2010 7:12:00 AM
Your article is certainly slanted against gun owning and buying," Throwing stars arranged in a menacing and angular way". You speak of "gun show loop holes". There are no gun show loop holes. There is only a law that says a private citizen may sell another private citizen a firearm if they comply with the law. All of the people who have booths that sell guns at a gun show are people who have Federal Firearms Licenses to sell, and any person who buys a firearm from them must do all of the things anyone has to do when buying a firearm from a store.
The entire ant-gun movement is based on a framework of lies. If they told the truth everyone could see that they are bogus.
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arnold castro 07/18/2010 7:21:00 PM
good day sir or ma,m can i ask a help about the shot gun that they gave to me its an minesota shot gun a bolt action, i think it was use in 2nd world war here in the pilipines some othere part are missing on the part mof the bolt or hammer can you pls help me so i can build it again? thank,s
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Formo 06/07/2010 11:32:00 PM
Nice work, Was expecting a hack job. Got much better. Still troubled that the author needed to call out the race of the buyers - just what did this have to do with anything? Since there were a lack of blacks, and yet many black criminals have guns, are we to infer that they do not buy them at guns shows and obtain them through illegal means (invalidating the entire gun show loophole argument)? Or are we to infer that only white men go to places where legal guns sales are the norm and illegal purchasers are shunned? You are headed in the right direction, but your biases are still showing.
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Paul 06/07/2010 8:54:00 AM
Nice work on the article! I rarely read city pages articles all the way through but this one was well written and researched. If the city pages had more articles that were objective like yours I would read it a lot more often.
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Micah 06/07/2010 3:26:00 AM
I'm shocked! I used to read the City Pages regularly and know it to be a paper that leans to the left on various issues, and most certainly on the gun control issue. I couldn't believe what I found. An article that accurately described what really goes on within the "gun community". I can only imagine what the members of Citizens for a Safer Minnesota were thinking when their false propaganda was put to the test...and failed. It's important to point out that Heather's issue isn't nearly as much of an issue as she would like to think. There are already plenty of laws on the books that prevent those without a FFL to sell to anyone that cannot legally buy or own a firearm. The current laws need to be enforced. And they are. There is absolutely no need for further legislation. The gun control nuts will never be happy with what's already in place. I applaud City Pages for running with the story anyways, even if the result wasn't what you (and others) were hoping for.
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JOhnnie 06/07/2010 1:13:00 AM
So help me understand, City Pages writers are all highly competent unless they tackle a subject in a way that pisses off the openly-biased 'editors' who manage the paper and the liberals who read it? Then the writers are incompetent hacks? Can't have it both ways folks.......
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Susan Berkovitz 06/05/2010 5:36:00 AM
Well, then how did Susan Berkovitz buy a .38 revolver at a Gun Show without a purchase permit, and shoot up the Hennepein County Court House?
How did the Metro Gang Strike Force sell off it's arsenal of seized firearms?
How did former Wyoming Police Chief Tony Pangal sell off the weapons in the Wyoming Police Department property room?
The truth is, the worst offenders at the Gun Shows are law enforcement selling guns they stole from criminals, and didn't turn in. Metro Gang Task Force is a prime example.
Over 1 million dollars of weapons sold, and put back on the street.
Where did Israel Anderson's gun come from? So he could shoot a Minneapolis Cop in the foot? Poor Grosland. Never mind he can't walk right.
Where did the Cop killer Jason John Jones get his guns?
Well there are no criminals getting guns at Gun Shows. Tell that to Sgt. Joseph Bergerons family.
IF you believe this BS in this article, go smoke some crack, do some X, and dream on.
Susan Berkovitz
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Erik Jensen 06/05/2010 2:00:00 AM
Snyder's article was totally unenlightening. I'm an avid hunter and own seven firearms, and I have a practical, non-ideological view of them as tools. He failed to uncover the very real problem of the gun show loophole by going to gun shows and attempting to buy from only licensed dealers w/out a background check, instead of private sellers. He also didn't look into the problem of straw purchases much, which a number of gun dealers ignore or knowingly allow. Most importantly, he only (correctly) criticized the ideology of some non-gun owners: "guns are bad, period". He failed to shed light on the opposite problem of the NRA/gun rights movement's opposite ideology that "guns are good, period". This ideology leads to taking extreme positions regarding all gun regulations, even common sense rules to keep guns from crooks and unstable people. Practical firearms owners like myself were totally unrepresented in the article.
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Joel Rosenberg 06/05/2010 12:38:00 AM
Heather writes:
This article doesn't explain the gun show loophole well. The gun show loophole is the gap in the law that allows "private sellers," people without a Federal license to sell guns, to conduct gun sales at gun shows without requiring a background check on the buyer.
Heather is correct, although incomplete. She could have left out "at gun shows". The same laws apply there that apply, say, in the parking lot outside, in the coffeeshop nearby, and so forth.
A suspicious guy would think that the Paymar bill, which Heather supports, really isn't about making sure that the small number of private sales at gun shows move from the gun show to the parking lot, but in the backdoor gun registration scheme embedded in it.
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ConstitutionJIM 06/04/2010 9:56:00 PM
Heather uses the term "unlicensed seller" the same way gun opponents use the word semi-automatic, i.e. purposefully turning it into a slur without even a shred of understanding what it all means.
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Ratus 06/04/2010 4:52:00 AM
"...somewhere between 30-50% of sellers at gunshows are unlicensed"
You don't need a Federal Firearms License (FFL) to sell beef jerky, hats, t-shirts, books, knives, belts, boots or any of the thousands of other things that those "unlicensed sellers" have for sale.
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Sparky 06/04/2010 3:16:00 AM
Aggie, can you provide cites for your assertions. The original sources, please.
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aggie 06/04/2010 3:03:00 AM
Clearly Matt did not go far enough to find an unlicensed seller at the gun shows. They are there all right, Many of them- somewhere between 30-50% of sellers at gunshows are unlicensed. Some of them are responsible enough to ask about the permit to purchase and refuse to sell to someone like Matt who does not have one. That's the good news. The bad news is that the ATF estimates that as many as 30% of confiscated illegal guns have their source at a gun show. Guns don't fall from the sky. They all start out as legal purchases. So why make it easy for felons, domestic abusers and the seriously mentally ill to be able to walk into a gun show and purchase a lethal weapon? I'm just saying..... Matt needs to do a little more homework and talk to a few more people on the side of reasonable gun laws that won't affect law abiding citizens. Maybe he'll get his gun and then he will find that with rights come responsibilities- to store it safely and not bring it out in times of anger, depression, divorce or using alcohol or drugs. Good article as far as it went and a very good description of gun shows but I hope there is a follow-up article when Matt finds those unlicensed sellers at gun shows willing to sell to anyone.
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Heather Martens 06/04/2010 1:49:00 AM
This article doesn't explain the gun show loophole well. The gun show loophole is the gap in the law that allows "private sellers," people without a Federal license to sell guns, to conduct gun sales at gun shows without requiring a background check on the buyer. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has called gun shows a "major trafficking channel" and recommended closing the gun show loophole. The reporter went to a gun show and tried to buy a gun from more than one Federally licensed dealer without proof of having passed a local background check. Of course that didn't work. That's not where the loophole is. It is the UNlicensed seller who can sell without requiring a background check of the buyer. When the reporter came across a man wandering around with the AK-47 with a "for sale" sign on it, he does not seem to have recognized that person as likely to be an unlicensed seller, and he didn't ask to buy the weapon. Next time, I suggest he ask to buy the weapon. We have bought weapons, including a semi-automatic pistol and a Ruger Mini-14, from unlicensed sellers at gun shows without a background check. If you go to our web site, www.endgunviolence.com, you can watch a buyer purchasing a pistol from an unlicensed seller at a gun show in Forest Lake in exactly this way.
Heather Martens, Citizens for a Safer Minnesota
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Dan 06/04/2010 12:24:00 AM
Very nice piece, and one hopes that Rep. Paymar attends a show sometime and does what Mr. Snyders did and actually talk to people. Gun owners/dealers are generally good natured and funny, but they know their shit when it comes to the law and they do not fuck around or put up with a lot of crap. Nobody understands what serious business this is like the people described in the article.
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.45 Colt 06/04/2010 12:14:00 AM
Snyders' "sense of place" and descriptions of people are quite realistic. His only failing is his inability to recognize the unlicensed gun sellers who also rent tables from the promoters, or perhaps it is simply lack of perserverance. Seek and ye shall find.
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Sparky 06/03/2010 7:38:00 PM
We'll see how long CP/VV lets this article sit on the front page of the web site. I bet that 'management' will be so hacked off at the tone of the article that they will push it off faster than a wet towel on a waterboarding subject.
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John Caile 06/03/2010 7:10:00 PM
What a refreshing change - a reporter who actually goes to the trouble of investigating the facts surrounding an issue!
Too bad our "mainstream" newspapers have never taken the time to do anything remotely approaching the efforts of the City Pages writer Matt Snyders.
Over the years I personally have invited numerous reporters to attend my carry permit classes, or just learn to shoot a handgun - surely they would want to at least get a smattering of understanding of such a significant issue. I was wrong.
Then again, it is just such lazy (and often biased) journalism that has lead to much of the public's misunderstanding of issues related to guns and gun owners, including the persistence of the "gun show loophole" myth.
Good job, Matt.
John Caile
www.sditraining.net
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nathan 06/03/2010 8:44:00 AM
When I saw this week's cover of City Pages I was a little worried that CP would once again put a spin on an issue just to fit a misinformed publics beliefs regarding guns. I was greatly relieved to read this article -- just one amidst all the other opposing media outlets -- that actually painted the vast majority of gun owners and dealers exactly how they are, law abiding citizens who believe that their rights to freedom begin with the ability to defend ones self. I am always surprised that those who oppose gun rights forget that a government who can take away this right can also take away other liberties: freedom of speech, religion, "freedom to disagree in general," etc. The right to defend oneself is also what protects our other civil liberties. Thank you, City Pages for not twisting the facts, but presenting gun owners, myself included, in a very fair, non-discriminatory manner.
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David Hustvedt 06/03/2010 7:08:00 AM
It is a Browning Buckmark, not Buckback.
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Joel Rosenberg 06/03/2010 12:29:00 AM
"When three black men enter the show at around 1 p.m., however, no one pays them much mind. Asked about their experience here, they seem more taken aback by the question's presumption than the surroundings."
Damn. You got the wrong black guys. I know two who, I'm pretty sure, would have responded with a deadpan of something like, "Trouble? Nah," and, looking around, "now where am de white women?"
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Paul 06/02/2010 8:58:00 PM
I've gotta echo MBerg. When I checked the byline on page 2, I was shocked to see it was Snyders. Keep up the good work.
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Chunkstyle 06/02/2010 8:24:00 PM
Some problems with this article. There is no gun show "loophole". The name is completely wrong. In MN, there are gun sales through dealers, which almost all gun show sales are, and private sales. Both kinds can be done anywhere, with or without gun shows.
What anti gun people really want to do is ban private sales everywhere, and make all sales go through dealers, at greater expense to all parties. But they hide it in "gun show loophole" rhetoric. What's more, almost no crime guns ever come from gun shows here, so it's really nothing whatever to do with crime.
Second, this article goes from one paragraph explaining how concealing a gun is neither a requirement nor a crime in MN, to calling a permit to carry "conceal and carry". There is no permit to conceal here, if you can carry legally, you can do so openly or concealed, it's your choice. Our permits are not only for private citizens, but are also used to allow armed private security to carry. (Police, of course, need no permit.)
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MBerg 06/02/2010 7:35:00 PM
I've bagged on Matt Snyders' writing pretty consistently in the past, but fair is fair; this is an excellent, well-balanced piece.
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Ruggy 06/02/2010 3:33:00 PM
Kudos for the honest and entertaining article; you tell it like it is. Gun shows are filled with law abiding, responsible citizens.
