The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune has done some excellent reporting on the effects of Minnesota’s liberalized concealed-carry law passed in 2003. Contrary to the claims of gun-rights advocates, the findings indicate that more guns do not equal less crime.

“There was an awful lot of hype on both sides before the law passed,” said state Public Safety Commissioner Michael Campion. “It just hasn’t materialized. I never believed there’d be a decrease in crime because people carry guns.”

The Star Tribune’s editorial board followed by calling the liberalized concealed-carry law “a solution in search of a problem� and pointed out that the NRA and other gun-industry lobbying groups use such bills as a way to raise money and sell their ideas, with little regard for how things really work.

There is a lesson here for Minnesota: Refuse to play the NRA game. The NRA has, in fact, a new flavor-of-the-month law before the Legislature right now…

Minnesotans need to be smarter about dealing with the NRA and legislators who sign on to push its bills. The group will never run out of proposals, because that’s how it survives.

The gun pushers try to create demand for their product, and they do it by fabricating nightmare scenarios that (they claim) can be addressed with the firearms they have for sale. Minnesotans and the rest of us would be wise to treat their “solutions� with skepticism.