Newly elected Minnesota House 5A representative Matt Bliss is coauthoring a “Stand Your Ground” bill, and a companion was introduced in the Senate.
Minnesota has traditionally had a “duty to retreat” stance on the justifiable taking of a life, which, as currently written in statute, prohibits taking the life of another unless they believe that not doing so would result in grave injury or death.
The introduced bill would eliminate that law and replace it with “use of deadly force in defense of home and person.”
The proposed bill would authorize deadly force against those whom the gun owner believes will commit a “forcible felony.”
A forcible felony, by the provided definition, is any crime punishable by imprisonment of more than one year, including murder, assault, rape, burglary, robbery, arson, and kidnapping.
Bliss is a Republican from Pennington and his district includes portions of Beltrami, Cass and Itasca Counties.
