Delta releases some pilot information in Flight 4819 amid ‘false and misleading assertions’
All 80 aboard the flight survived; the last of 21 injured was released from the hospital Thursday.
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.
Rob Doar, the senior vice president of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, found it interesting that a case involving an improperly stowed BB gun could lead the Supreme Court to upend historical notions of private property on public roads.
“This is somehow a more serious thing that disregards additional historical privacy and warrantless search protections?” he asked. “It’s really head-scratching.”
“What this opinion is going to do is provide a lot of opportunities for prosecutors to say, ‘Well, the Supreme Court decided here that there are some instances where a car is a public place, and here’s the citation.‘”
Peter Knapp, a professor of law with the Mitchell Hamline School of Law who is an expert on state Supreme Court opinions, said any wide-ranging legal fallout from the case stands outside the opinion itself.
