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Ely town hall gets heated

Rep. Roger Skraba overshadowed by argumentative co-sponsor

Catie Clark
Posted 3/8/23

ELY— Newly-elected Rep. Roger Skraba’s first town hall meeting held in his hometown proved contentious, with much of the heat generated by co-host, Sen. Nathan Wesenberg, of Little Falls. …

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Ely town hall gets heated

Rep. Roger Skraba overshadowed by argumentative co-sponsor

Posted

ELY— Newly-elected Rep. Roger Skraba’s first town hall meeting held in his hometown proved contentious, with much of the heat generated by co-host, Sen. Nathan Wesenberg, of Little Falls. About 50 people turned out for Saturday’s event, billed as an “Iron Range Second Amendment Town Hall,” held at the Ely Senior Center. A flyer promoting the event gave lead billing to gun legislation currently being considered in St. Paul, but was to include discussion of the state surplus, Social Security tax cuts, and “other issues affecting our way of life on The Range.”
“I’m going to try to keep (the discussion moderated) so everyone will have an opportunity to speak if they want,” Skraba told the audience at the beginning. Then he and Wesenberg did all the speaking for the next 46 minutes.
Skraba touted his willingness to cross the aisle at the Legislature to vote on items like funding homeless shelters if there was value to his constituents. For example, Skraba noted that passage of the homeless shelter funding could bring some of that money into Virginia, to help with its homeless problem. Skraba addressed other issues that concerned him, like the lack of mental health funding, without going into details. He did state that he believed that there was a strong tie between mental illness and mass shootings.
While Skraba portrayed himself as an open-minded moderate, Wesenberg made no such efforts, at various times expressing contempt and paranoia for those who disagree with his views. He portrayed himself as a rugged, self-sufficient outdoorsman who believed that a return to conservative values and strong families would end entitlements and moral decay.
“All my friends played Nintendo but I was outside playing in the woods,” Wesenberg stated. “I was fishing or hunting or riding my bike. That’s what kids should be doing.”
Wesenberg complained that kids today are too soft and said past generations worked harder, paid what they could afford and never expected handouts or entitlements. “So now, when I see someone (who) has a PlayStation, Nike shoes, and a $1,000 phone, ask for help – No. All that stuff needs to be destroyed. You don’t need all that crap.”
Wesenberg quickly dove into gun control issues, at times exposing his lack of understanding of some of the issues at hand. He incorrectly mislabeled Minnesota’s 72-hour psychiatric hold law as a red flag law, which allow law enforcement to remove firearms from someone who is an immediate danger to themselves and others.
“We have red flag laws already,” said Wesenberg. “Don’t you know that? Now you do. They can take (a disturbed person) and put a 72-hour hold on. This is the mental health stuff we’re talking about. They can already do that. But there’s no reason to take his guns … They might as well take your knives and your baseball bat and your hammers and your cars and your horse and whatever else, because all those things can kill people too.”
Minnesota, in fact, does not have a red flag law though several bills have been introduced into the Legislature to add one to the state’s statutes.
Wesenberg made clear he views any gun control laws as a loss of freedom. “If we didn’t have firearms to protect ourselves, you know, there’s a state called China and North Korea where they can’t have weapons. That’s how we would be.”
Skraba pointed out that one of the gun control laws would mandate that guns and ammunition be stored in different locations in a home, making self-defense with a firearm inside a home illegal. Wesenberg expanded on Skraba’s remark. “This makes it easier for criminals to cause harm,” he remarked. “I can’t have a loaded gun in my home to protect myself from a criminal that would come into my home with a loaded gun to harm me, so I have to die so this criminal can take whatever they want.”
At least three of the proposed gun control laws (HF 14, SF 1116, SF 1723) attempt to close the loophole that no background checks are required for private sales and transfers of firearms. Wesenberg falsely claimed these laws would make it illegal to do a simple loan of a gun without first checking in with a sheriff. He used an example, “Let’s say I go hunting and Bill drops his gun and breaks his gun. Before I can loan my gun to him, I have to go to the sheriff and ask him, ‘hey, I want to loan Bill my gun so he can go hunting in the morning.’ Does that make any sense?”
After reviewing the three bills Wesenberg cited, however, the Timberjay has confirmed that all three exclude the temporary loan of a gun for hunting or sporting events from the background check requirement.
Attendees bite back
After 46 minutes of the Skraba and Wesenberg show, the first member of the audience spoke up. Becky Rom, of Morse Township, protested, “This was advertised as a town hall for you to hear from your constituents, and so far, it’s just been a lobbying campaign.”
Rom went on to say that she supported all the gun control measures currently under discussion in the Legislature. “You started this conversation by saying I’ve already decided on this bill.”
Skraba confirmed that: “Yeah.”
Rom continued, “We are your constituents, and you represent us. And I hope you have an open mind, Roger. I, as your constituent, support locking up ammunition and guns in homes. A lot of children are harmed when that doesn’t happen. They find these guns, they take them to school, and they kill their classmates.”
Wesenberg interrupted Rom at this point to say, “So you know, that my kids don’t do that, because I’ve taught them not to do that.”
Rom refused to be derailed and finished her statement aimed at Skraba, thanking him for listening to her opinion as one of his constituents.
Wesenberg attempted to rebut, but Rom said that she would not accept his rebuttal since it was Skraba’s stated intent to use the town hall to listen to his constituents like herself, and that Wesenberg did not represent her in the Legislature. The next few moments were heated as multiple people tried to talk over each other.
Wesenberg remarked to Skraba, loud enough to be heard over many voices, “You tell them what I’m going to tell them, because she can call and say, ‘I don’t like that guy,’ and the cops will take my guns.”
Wesenberg stuck to his erroneous interpretation of the language of pending red flag law legislation, suggesting that police could confiscate guns on a whim. “If I don’t like this lady, she’s my neighbor, I can call the police and say she’s been running around with a gun here. They could come, they could arrest her. They could come, they could arrest, and take your guns, and you’ll never get them back. There’s no due process.”
A minute later, an unidentified gentleman in the audience brought up HF 15, one of the so-called red flag bills under consideration in St. Paul, which he was reading on a smart phone while in the town hall. He read out the due process procedure included in its text for the temporary red flag removal of firearms from an unstable person, which includes a court petition and hearing. “There’s your due process,” he said, disputing Wesenberg’s misrepresentation.
Familiar arguments
The remainder of the town hall careened through most of the same old arguments about gun rights and gun control plus a few other topics, like transgender surgery for minors. The crowd appeared to be split evenly between gun rights and gun control advocates and several repeated Wesenberg’s conservative stance regarding moral decay and chipping away at individual freedoms.
Skraba appeared to listen and respect even contrasting points of view from his constituents. His desire to appear open-minded and respectful, however, did not stand up well next to the certitude expressed by Wesenberg, who demonstrated no interest or desire to respect other views, and frequently argued with those with whom he disagreed. Wesenberg interrupted speakers and often inserted himself to have the last word. Though it was Skraba’s town hall, Wesenberg clearly upstaged him.
Throughout, Wesenberg maintained his stand that most of the problems discussed could be fixed by a return to family values, strong moral guidance in the home, self-sufficiency, fiscal responsibility and an ethic of hard work. He argued that those with differing views are leading the country down a path to tyranny and morally inferiority. He treated Democrats as an enemy led by senior politicians like President Biden whose agenda including making lists of all gun owners for nefarious purposes.
“What universal background checks do,” Wesenberg said, “is force every transfer to go through a government system which allows Tim Walz, Keith Ellison, Joe Biden to create a massive list of guns, gun owners where they live- and we oppose that. Government shouldn’t have lists of American citizens.”
It’s not clear whether Wesenberg has heard of the Internal Revenue Service or the Census Bureau, two federal agencies that track and maintain far more information about U.S. citizens than a background check. In either case, federal law requires the destruction of any gun-related background check data within 24 hours, unless the individual is legally prohibited from possessing a firearm.
While Wesenberg and others criticized gun safety laws as ineffective, Frank Sherman of Eagle’s Nest, took issue with that argument. “If we only pass laws that we thought were 100 percent, effective, I would have been out of the job,” said Sherman, who served 40 years as a prosecutor. “Republicans have in the past said, and they said it today, we don’t need new laws, we should just enforce the ones we have. Well, obviously, that hasn’t solved the problem.” 
Sherman also chastised Skraba a bit. “The point of this session I thought, as was just said, was to air issues. Part of the problem with this whole process is that you [Skraba] felt the need to start by apologizing for being bipartisan. You shouldn’t have to do that. It sure sounded like you were apologizing in front of your Republican friends for voting with a Democrat?”
Skraba responded, “I’m not, I’m not embarrassed at all.”
Addressing both lawmakers, Sherman continued. “You build this as a discussion about the threats to our way of life. And I know the Senator has in the past said that these democratic issues are atrocities that threaten our way of life. I don’t think that’s helpful to moving us forward as a society.”