Star Tribune
St. Paul City Council to vote next week on mandate to secure guns and ammo
A proposed ordinance that would require St. Paul gun owners to securely store their firearms and ammunition in order to deter thefts is headed for a vote next week after a public hearing Wednesday following vocal support and opposition.
The proposal would amend city code, penalizing people who leave a loaded or unloaded firearm in a vehicle or location where someone could take it. The amendment would not apply toward people who take “reasonable action” to lock their gun and keep ammunition where others can’t access it.
Second Ward Council Member Rebecca Noecker and Mayor Melvin Carter, whose locked guns were stolen in 2017 before the culprit was charged, said in an April news release that the proposal would decrease the number of gunfire incidents.
“Loose guns pose a danger to our entire community,” Carter said in the release. “Responsible gun owners must do their part to prevent firearms from falling into the wrong hands.”
St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry said the ordinance could prevent unsecured guns from being used in criminal activity or suicides.
Deputy Chief Paul Ford echoed that support, adding that 227 firearms were reported stolen in St. Paul by the middle of last year. Nearly half of those guns were stolen from vehicles.
“So if we want to reduce gun violence, if we want to reduce gun crimes, safe storage is an integral part,” Ford said. “If people can’t steal guns from vehicles, which is where most of ours are taken, they’re less likely to be able to use those in crimes.”
Wednesday’s public hearing also featured words from a physician, teacher, former council member, and from people like Rolf Olson — a pastor whose 24-year-old daughter Katherine Ann Olson was shot to death in 2007 after answering a Craigslist ad for a babysitter.
“As a gun owner and hunter myself, I’m not opposed to guns. But I certainly know how deadly they are,” Olson said. “My daughter was murdered with an unsecured pistol taken from his father’s dresser drawer next to a pill bottle full of bullets. Had that pistol been properly stored, it is quite likely that my daughter would still be alive today.”
Some challenged the proposal, saying it would disarm residents, break Minnesota law, and breach the Second Amendment. Those challengers included members of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, who joined a lawsuit challenging a Minnesota law barring 18- to 20-year-olds from obtaining permits to carry handguns in public.
“People in the state of Minnesota have a right to defend themselves and they can’t do that effectively if their firearms are rendered inoperable when someone breaks into their house,” Gus Sandberg, a member of the Gun Owners Caucus, said in publicized comments about the measure. “I would ask that you vote no on this new ordinance.”
Ward Nichols of St. Paul called the proposed ordinance “an attempt to punish law-abiding gun owners and would not be followed by criminals.”
“I believe that the ordinance, if passed, would immediately become the subject of lawsuits,” he said. “I do not want my St. Paul tax dollars being used to attempt a defense of this ordinance.”
With public hearings over, the measure now moves forward for the City Council to review at its next meeting. Council President Amy Brendmoen said other council members are supporting the ordinance and she expects that it will pass on May 3.
The ordinance would then go to Carter, becoming effective around a month after his signature.
Star Tribune
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, on the campaign trial, gives a pep talk to the Mankato West High School Scarlets, a team he once coached.
MANKATO – The football players in their pads jogged out to face their rivals Friday night as Gov. Tim Walz, back home briefly as he campaigns across the country as vice presidential nominee, cheered them on.
“Don’t forget to have fun, enjoy,” Walz told players on the football team at Mankato West High School, where he worked as a geography teacher and assistant football coach before launching a political career that carried him to the Democratic Party’s national ticket.
Since choosing Walz as her running mate, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has touted his background as a football coach, hunter and gun owner, as Democrats reach out to Midwestern voters and look for inroads with men.
Walz’s stop in Mankato is one of a series of media stops in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where the governor is talking high school football and hunting.
“This is the best of America,” Walz told reporters after greeting the players of Mankato West ahead of their rivalry game with Mankato East. He said he would visit his old classroom, before heading to watch the game.
A quarter center ago, Walz was the assistant defensive football coach for the 1999 Mankato West football team that won the state championship. That year’s crosstown rivalry game was a spark for Mankato West as it headed toward its state championship, said John Considine, a Mankato West alum and right tackle on that 1999 Class 4A championship team.
“It’s good to have him back,” Considine said Friday.
Local Republicans called Walz’s appearance a stunt. “They’re getting desperate to get the word out,” said Yvonne Simon, chair of the Blue Earth County GOP, adding she’s doesn’t think the governor’s “coach” branding is catching on.
“There’s a fair amount of stuff we’ve digested over the years,” Kerfoot told the Star Tribune at the time of the sale. “It’ll take a while to pick all of it out of me.”
In recent years, he and Sue have spent summers in Minnesota and then traveled back to Missouri to be close to family for the rest of the year.
Visitors love to drop in and talk about Justine Kerfoot or Bruce Kerfoot or the years they spent working at the lodge, Fredrikson said. He’s found that Bruce’s energy seemingly matched that of his mother, who died in 2001 when she was 94.
“He was one of those people that was able to get stuff done more easily or better than other people,” Fredrikson said. “Maybe because of who he was, or maybe because the stars align for this kind of person.”
In a social media post, Kerfoot’s family said they had peace knowing he and his mother “were paddling together to their shore lunch spot.”
Mark Hennessy knew Kerfoot for 40 years, but has had a closer view for the past three years. He said without Kerfoot, the Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center, located near the end of the Gunflint Trail, wouldn’t exist. Whenever there was a work project, the executive director said, Kerfoot would show up.
A teenage motorcyclist was killed in a collision with an SUV at a Burnsville intersection, officials said Friday.
The crash occurred shortly after 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Burnsville Parkway and Interstate 35W, police said.
The motorcyclist was identified by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office as Peter Vsevolod Genis, 17, of Burnsville.
An SUV driver was turning left from westbound Burnsville Parkway to northbound 35W when Genis went through a red light while heading east and struck the SUV.
The SUV driver and a woman with him, both from Burnsville, were not hurt.
The other vehicle was a Mercedes SUV. The driver was a 30-year-old male from Burnsville, with a 29-year-old female passenger from Burnsville. Neither of them was injured.
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