Sunday Smiles

David Strom 2:30 PM | February 23, 2025
Grok/David Strom

My state, Minnesota, is run by insane people. 

Tim Walz is the prime example, mostly because everybody has heard of him. But just because he is the most prominent crazy person in government, he is hardly the most dangerous to the rights of Minnesotans. 

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This week the Minnesota Supreme Court made that very clear once again. In an absurd ruling that will surely make its way to the Supreme Court, it ruled that the inside of one's vehicle, when it is on public roads, is to be considered a "public space."

Now nobody doubts that the road is a public space, and a cop looking through windows is permissible because anything visible is in plain view, but this ruling allows police officers to search your vehicles without a warrant if they pull you over. 

That is, as I said, insane and runs counter to decades of U.S. Supreme Court rulings. 

What makes it even more insane is that the case is about the arrest of a man for possessing a B.B. gun, which apparently is an illegal firearm to possess in your vehicle if you don't have a permit to carry it. 

B.B. gun. No Fourth Amendment protections. 

Make it make sense if you can. I can't. 

The Minnesota Supreme Court opinion defining a “public place” on Wednesday was specifically targeted, relating only to a statute concerning rifles and shotguns in public places.

But legal experts and gun rights advocates believe the opinion’s language will have a deeper impact.

The case dealt with a BB gun stuffed under the front seat of Kyaw Be Bee’s car in St. Paul in 2022 that was discovered after a traffic stop and subsequent search. He was charged with a gross misdemeanor because he “did not have a permit to carry a firearm in public.”

The charge was dismissed in Ramsey County District Court, because Judge Leonardo Castro ruled that state law did not clearly define the interior of a privately owned car as a public place. That decision was overturned by the Minnesota Court of Appeals, which determined when a rifle or shotgun is in a car on a public road it is in a public place. That interpretation was upheld Wednesday by the state Supreme Court.

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I am still stunned that having a B.B. gun inside the vehicle is illegal, but at least I can fathom such a law being passed. But calling the interior of a car "public space" is beyond the pale. Does that mean that I can enter a vehicle parked on the street? Open the door of a car stopped at a stoplight whenever I feel like it? Does the owner of the car have no rights once they leave their driveway?

No doubt the court would say that this is a special case--police looking for a concealed weapon. But that doesn't wash. Do we have Schrödinger's cars? Public and not public, depending on the specific type of thing a policeman is looking for? The police can't search for drugs, but they can for B.B. guns without a warrant. WTF are they thinking? 

Liberals are all about saving American democracy, by which they mean, "Do what I say or go to jail." This is the sort of thing that would drive our Founders to pick up their muskets and start shooting the tyrants. 

I am not suggesting anything so drastic, but I am fat, lazy, and, while churlish, not inclined to revolution. 

I used to think that people muttering about the increasing tyranny in the West were overdramatizing, but no longer. We are hurtling toward a soft (mostly) totalitarianism. We may not have concentration camps or reeducation centers yet (reeducation is a Canadian thing, though. Ask Jordan Peterson.), but we are inching there. 

In Minnesota, the Fourth Amendment is on life support. I swear, if I get arrested, I am becoming trans to get into a safer prison. 

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