Testimony of the Most Reverend Richard E. Pates,
Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis
Minnesota State Senate
Crime Prevention & Public Safety Committee
Senator Leo Foley, Chair
May 2, 2005
Subject: Proposed Handgun-Carrying Law

Good morning Mister Chair and members of the committee. I am Bishop Richard Pates, of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and I am a member of the Board of Directors of the Minnesota Catholic Conference which is the statewide public policy organization of the Roman Catholic Bishops from each of the six Dioceses in Minnesota. Thank you for providing me with an opportunity to share our perspective on this matter with you this morning.

We Bishops adamantly oppose any law which would increase the number of handguns carried in our communities and this proposed law will result in exactly that.

At the very least, we believe that an individual who desires to carry a loaded deadly weapon in public must have a legitimate job-related need or a demonstrated personal safety reason to do so.

And, we further believe that our law enforcement personnel must have the discretion to deny handgun-carrying permits to individuals within their communities who they deem may pose a public safety risk to others if they were granted what is, in our opinion, the extraordinary privilege of carrying a loaded deadly weapon in public.

It is our contention that the now-existing handgun permitting law adequately provides for these considerations.

We Bishops joined together to challenge this law after it was first passed two years ago, and with our support and encouragement, a local Catholic parish from each of our six Dioceses across our state, serving as representative parishes for all of our Catholic churches in Minnesota, joined together with congregations from other faiths as plaintiffs in the Ramsey County lawsuit which successfully challenged this law in our Minnesota Courts. We chose to do this because it is our duty and obligation to confront a culture of violence and build a culture of peace.

In our 1995 statement Confronting a Culture of Violence, our national organization of Catholic Bishops advised that:

Violence in our homes, our schools and street, our nation and world is destroying the lives, dignity and hopes of millions of our sisters and brothers. Fear of violence is paralyzing and polarizing our communities. . . . A nation born in a commitment to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ is haunted by death, imprisoned by fear and caught up in the elusive pursuit of protection rather than happiness.

This bill is born of the fear of violence of which we spoke

and if this bill becomes law, we believe that it will not only further polarize our communities but it will make us all less safe.

Thirty years ago -- in 1975 -- our United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement entitled Handgun Violence: A Threat to Life. In this statement, we explained,

We are deeply committed to upholding the value of human life and opposing those forces which threaten it. One of these factors is the easy availability of handguns in our society. Because it is so easily concealed, the handgun is often the weapon of crime. Because it is readily available, it is often the weapon of passion and suicide. . . . . The unlimited freedom to possess and use handguns must give way to the rights of all peoples to safety and protection against those who misuse these weapons. We believe that effective action must be taken to reverse this rising tide of violence.

We believe that this proposed handgun-carrying law is but one example of a troubling trend in our society to reject the common good through the adoption of laws and public policies that place a distorted emphasis upon individual rights.

Moreover, we believe that this proposed handgun-carrying law fuels our existing culture of violence by encouraging individuals to respond to violence -- or a perceived threat of violence -- with yet more violence.

It doesn’t have to be this way. It wasn’t always this way. We must all carefully examine the messages we are sending and the lessons we are teaching our children with the public policies we enact.

We can choose to turn away from violence and towards building communities of greater peace.

We can choose to begin this work together today by rejecting this bill.

Let us hear and act together with new urgency on the words of Jesus Christ, "Blessed are the peacemakers; they shall be called the children of God" (Matthew 5:9).

A non-partisan coalition of distinguished Minnesota statesmen, including former-Vice President Walter Mondale and former-Governor Arne Carlson, with whom I am proud to be associated, have pointed out that this proposed law is a retreat from our cherished values and our prized quality of life.

Moreover, we believe that it is imperative for us all to seek to responsibly balance the so-called private right to bear arms with our individual rights associated with personal and private property including those of Juridic persons and all parts of our properties including our churches, parking lots, grounds and our other religious organizations and facilities.

With you, I have seen the destructive forces of guns in our communities including:

• The overwhelming tragedies of the Red Lake and Rocori High School shootings;

• In North Minneapolis where a peaceful group of Visitation Nuns assert that the persistent and all-too-common volley of gunfire makes a typical summer weekend sound like the fireworks on the Fourth of July;
  

• Where in the last month, the Minneapolis police department reported that Minneapolis is a safer city because their officers have recovered dozens of guns from that city’s streets; and

• Personally experiencing the pain, profound anguish and unspeakable suffering of a family who lost an exemplary 20-year-old son who was the victim of a handgun on our streets.

We must ask, are we endangering the most basic human right of all -- the right to life -- by extending a so-called personal right from its explicitly-stated purpose that emerged in a far different era and culture which, in fact, was even more violent than ours?

Sadly, it appears that the members of this legislature might ignore our pleas and the will of the majority of the citizens in our state and enact this law. With that in mind, let me take a few moments to address just a few of our serious objections to this bill.

Ø Individuals with a record of violence should not be allowed to carry loaded deadly weapons in public; anyone with any felony conviction or a misdemeanor or gross misdemeanor conviction for any violent crime -- such as domestic violence, stalking, terroristic threats or assault and battery -- should never be eligible for a permit.

Ø No guns in schools; guns must be prohibited in all K through 12 schools, childcare centers and daycare facilities including parking lots and grounds.

Ø Alcohol and guns don’t mix;

[G]uns should be prohibited from bars and other places that sell or serve alcohol and permits should not be valid when the permit holder is consuming any amount of alcohol.

Ø Local control; local governments should have the authority to ban guns from their buildings, parking lots, grounds and parks and athletic fields.

Ø And, as you may expect, no guns in our churches, parking lots, grounds and our religious organizations and facilities; all religious institutions and organizations should be totally exempt from the law.

My fellow Bishops and I thank you for your consideration and we urge you to vote “NO” on this bill.