Minnesota gun owners are facing some harsh proposals as Gov. Tim Walz has the legislature meeting in a special session to consider passing additional gun control laws in the wake of the shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church. Fortunately for Minnesota gun owners, gun-rights leaders in the state are just lying down and playing dead.
On September 18, the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus (MGOC) announced the formation of the Minnesota Gun Owners Law Center (MNGOLC), a brand new 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to aggressively defending and expanding the constitutional rights of Minnesota gun owners through legal action.
According to a press release distributed by the MGOC, Rob Doar, co-founder of the Caucus and longtime advocate for Minnesota’s gun owners, will step into the role of president of the Minnesota Gun Owners Law Center. In that capacity he will lead strategic legal efforts on behalf of gun owners across the state.
Bryan Strawser, chair of MGOC and MGOLC said Minnesota gun owners deserve aggressive action, and that’s what they’ll get with Doar at the helm of the Law Center.
“For years, the Caucus has fought against unconstitutional laws at the Capitol and in the courts,” Strawser said. “Now, we have in-house capacity to pursue aggressive legal action to restore Second Amendment freedoms without relying solely on outside counsel. This is a game changer.”
The Law Center will focus on challenging unlawful restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms in Minnesota and beyond, filing major and smaller-scale cases that advance Second Amendment freedoms and submitting amicus curiae briefs in Second Amendment cases across the country. It will also partner with national organizations to advance Second Amendment litigation, educate the public, law enforcement and the legal community about legal issues related to the right to keep and bear arms, and provide cost-effective litigation by leveraging in-house counsel.
“This new chapter allows us to take the fight directly to government agencies and officials who seek to undermine our rights,” said Doar, who will no longer be directly lobbying. “Every dollar donated to the Law Center will go toward holding government accountable and defending the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.”
As the MGOC pointed out, the launch of the Minnesota Gun Owners Law Center follows a series of significant legal victories, including Worth v. Jacobson, in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit struck down Minnesota’s age restriction on permits to carry—restoring the rights of 18- to 20-year-olds—and Caucus v. Walz, which struck down the binary trigger ban as a violation of Minnesota’s single subject clause in the state constitution.
However, it also comes as Democrats in the legislature are pushing a number of different gun control schemes during the special session, including a ban on so-called “assault weapons,” re-enactment of the state’s binary trigger ban, a requirement for serial numbers on guns, safe storage requirements, gun safety training and the creation of a civil commitment division in the Attorney General’s Office.
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