Ex-cops and guns

If there were an award for unfortunate timing at the Legislature, it might go today to Rep. Tony Cornish, R-Good Thunder.

Cornish today introduced HF 3428, which allows retired peace officers to carry a pistol without a permit.

Here’s his bill:

A permit to carry a pistol is not required of: (1) any officer of a state adult correctional facility when on guard duty or otherwise engaged in an assigned duty.; or (2) a person who: (i) within the past five years has received the training in the safe use of a pistol described in subdivision 2a; and (ii) was a peace officer and retired or separated from service in good standing from a law enforcement agency, other than for reasons of mental illness or chemical dependency, after being regularly employed as a peace officer for at least 15 years or for any period beyond the agency’s probationary period if the person retired or separated from service due to a service-related disability. (c) A law enforcement agency shall issue a photographic identification to a person who retired or separated from service from the agency and who meets the criteria described in paragraph (b), clause (2), item (ii). The agency may charge the person a processing fee not to exceed the actual and reasonable direct cost to the agency of issuing the identification.

Meanwhile, in Chisholm the investigation is continuing into the weekend shooting in which a former cop shot up a table at a bar from where he’d been kicked out minutes earlier.

Skoogman said the suspect, a former police officer in the ’80s, returned minutes after being kicked out of the bar with two handguns.

“He fired off 5 shots, injuring two people and fatally shooting a third person,” Skoogman said. “All three were sitting at the same table as his ex-wife and all three were shot at close range.

It’s not known yet whether the 47-year-old alleged shooter had a permit for the guns used in the attack or whether he would’ve qualified to carry without a permit under Cornish’s legislation. He was a police officer for about six years. He left voluntarily when layoffs were looming back in 1989, according to Andy Skoogman of the Department of Public Safety.