I recently attended a Minnesota House Safety Committee meeting at our Capitol and provided a 90-second testimonial on gun storage in conjunction with the NRA. I have been an NRA member for over 40 years.

There were four bills being proposed that the committee reviewed:

• HF 14, which would require a universal background check with statewide registration of transfer even between family members.
• HF 15, which is a Red Flag law that promotes gun confiscation if someone feels you are a threat to yourself or others.
• HF 396, which would require all guns to be in locked storage with ammunition stored separately and include trigger locks on all guns.
• HF 601, which would require mandatory reporting of lost or stolen firearms within 48 hours of discovery, with felony and fines if not reported.

This is an alert to all Minnesota hunters and firearm owners to call your state representatives and remind them of the Second Amendment. A well-regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state, the rights of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
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I want you to imagine a break-in at your family’s home and getting your pistol out of a safe, going and procuring ammo, and finding the correct key for the trigger lock.

I imagine all hunters have multiple firearms for bird hunting, deer hunting, varmint hunting and target shooting. Think about family members, too. That is a lot of trigger locks!

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These bills violate our Second Amendment, they make criminals out of hard-working taxpaying Minnesotans and do nothing to help enforcement of the laws we already have enacted, do nothing to promote prosecution and do nothing to apply sentencing guidelines.

We already have laws in place to deter criminals, however, criminals fail to follow the law, as we all know.

I encourage you all to call your state legislators and talk to your friends, neighbors and fellow hunters to oppose these bills. If you don’t, it will cost you dearly in the future.