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A group of St. Paul city leaders are trying to pass a gun ordinance, against state law. The move is a challenge the state’s preemption laws, which would prevent the ordinance from going into effect. 

On Wednesday, in St. Paul officials held a public townhall for the proposed ordinance. Maddy Muse, a teacher in the city, was among 10 people in favor of the proposal. The mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church on Aug. 27 was top of mind. 

“This tragedy makes one thing heartbreakingly clear: as long as military-style rifles are allowed in our city, we cannot keep children safe,” she said. 

Rob Doar with the Minnesota Gun Owner’s Caucus said he’s already planning a lawsuit.

“Every dollar spent defending an illegal ordinance in court is a dollar taken away from real public safety action, and I would implore you not to do that,” he said.  

Forty-two states, including Minnesota, have preemption laws.

Colorado lifted its preemption law in 2021. The state had experienced a mass shooting in March of that year and three months later, legislation was passed allowing cities, university board of directors and other local boards to pass gun laws.

State Senator Steve Fenberg, a Democrat from Colorado, was instrumental in lifting that ban. 

“Everything these days has become so nationalized when at the end of the day, local governments are the ones that are closest to its people,” Fenberg said. 

He spoke to Emily Bright on Morning Edition. 

Below is a transcript of the conversation lightly edited for clarity. Listen to the interview by clicking the player above.

What sort of work went into garnering support to lift your state’s preemption laws?

The reality is that after some of these horrible events — and Colorado has had our fair share — there often is a demand from the community to say, “Well, what could we have done about this? What are we going to do?”

It was in the middle of COVID, it was a little bit of a crazy time, and people were demanding a response. We did a big community listening session, and had a lot of town halls and came up with several policies that we ended up passing, one of which is this piece around removing the preemption on firearms.

What were you hearing from city leaders and constituents during those listening sessions?

The ironic, sort of odd situation that we found ourselves in is that the city where the shooting happened, Boulder, Colo., actually had an assault weapon ban on the books already, and it was thrown out by a judge just a couple of days prior to the shooting because of this preemption law.

And so, the demand was to at least figure out how a city could take matters into its own hands and protect its community. We’re not saying you can’t have guns in this state. We’re not saying you can’t hunt or use it for self-protection, but we are saying that certain types of guns or certain types of activities with guns should not be allowed in our community.

We received pushback from the usual suspects. The gun rights organizations — the activists — felt like this was an overreach and a gun grab. It wasn’t. It really was about community empowerment, but that was what we heard, the tired arguments that we always hear.

At the end of the day, we didn’t get them to support the bill, of course, but I think we did lower the temperature quite a bit once they understood what could or could not be allowed and the fact that this wouldn’t prohibit law-abiding citizens from doing basic activities.

What were some of the ordinances that passed in these cities since the law was lifted?

Yeah, so it kind of runs the gamut, but we understood that firearms play a different role in different communities. Obviously, we didn’t want to allow local communities to go less restrictive, but we wanted folks to have a community conversation and do what they felt was best.

And so some communities banned the presence of assault weapons. Others said that all of the normal, basic state laws still apply, except you cannot have concealed carry firearms or open carry firearms in government buildings, where tensions may get high and unfortunate incidences could happen if things get violent.

This discussion now lives at city council meetings and local boards for special districts and university boards of directors and things like that. And I think that’s where it should be. Everything these days has become so nationalized when at the end of the day, local governments are the ones that are closest to their people. 

None of these laws are permanent. You can always change a law if you feel like it’s gone too far or the political sentiment changes. And we think that that conversation for many of these issues really should be at the local level, and should be a locally driven conversation. 

Obviously, gun violence has continued to be a problem, but at least we know that the tools and resources exist for local communities to have a conversation prior to an event, or, God forbid, after an event, and decide what is best for their community.

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Under state law, Minnesota cities can’t regulate guns. St. Paul city leaders are introducing an assault weapon ban anyway. In Colorado, cities can now make gun laws after a statewide preemption law was overturned. 

Cities should be able to make gun laws, says lawmaker who helped change Colorado law

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