I don’t think your average citizen wants to carry a concealed hand gun.

And to my understanding this measure has nothing to do with concealment.

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Greg, that no rider amendmant is very appealing. It’d be benificial to the people to be properly represented on each individual issue instead of politicians having to choose the greater good or lesser evil.

As far as the signs go, it makes alot of sense. And while you cannot detain an individual, you could perhaps put in metal detectors if you really wanted to enforce it. However generally speaking law abiding individuals should obey the signs, it is the ones that do not abide the law that we have to worry about, because they have some purpose in breaking it.

The moment this law came into existence, all shops in liberal neighborhoods (such as the entire Fifth Congressional District, for instance) happily put up “No guns” signs. It was kinda fun.

The strange thing is that there are probably very very few Minnesotans walking around with guns. We are, of course, armed to the teeth like everyone else, but the guns are generally kept at home under lock and key. I think.

I don’t think anybody here can search anybody. In other words, I think the signs may be unenforceable, but perhaps it would matter if the gun goes off by accident or whatever.

Peter, I don’t think your idea would work because of 2 problems. National Parks don’t directly generate much revenue for the states, and 48 states have conceal and carry laws. To get tight gun control laws passed, you need to get the residents scared of armed criminals, then convince them the police can protect them.

Greg Laden, are the signs effective in Minnesota? Here in Oregon, a personal sign cannot overturn state law. Stores have the right to refuse service, but they cannot search people to discover if they are armed.

We have a “you can carry a gun anywhere” law here that was passed a few years ago as a rider. It was promptly thrown out by the courts because of this constitutional no-rider provision.

Of course, the bill was reintroduced as a stand alone bill, passed, and so now every school, church, grocery store, dry cleaners, bar, etc. in the state had to put up a sign that says “No firearms allowed in this facility” (unless of course they did not care about the firearms).

In states with concealed handgun permits (48 states currently do), people would be in violation of federal law, while being legal with state law. This obvious conflict needed some clarification, and this legislation is the resolution.

I personally found myself in violation of this federal law. Hiking in Oregon, I was carrying my pistol when we wandered into Crater Lake National Park. We had left Lamola lake, which is a state park. Fortunately, there were no CIA rendition teams to wisk me away to Gitmo for some enhanced interrogation.

Regardless of someones position on the 2nd amendment, it was a clear conflict between state and federal law that needed clarification. Unfortunately, our legislative process is a convoluted mess, and this type of unrelated addendum happens all the time.