Minnesota Republican cites fear of cows in voting against new gun safety bill

A Minnesota Republican justified his opposition to new gun safety legislation this week by raising the specter of cows trampling unarmed Americans "into dust."

Heartland Signal reports that Republican Minnesota State Sen. Warren Limmer recently said that he could not in good conscience support a bill that would create statewide standards for the safe storage of firearms due to the impact it could have on farmers.

"There's another segment of our population that often requires guns in their occupation," he said. "I'm talking about rural farm people that are living out in rural areas. They not only have to have concerns about predation, but they also have concerns about their own domestic farm animals."

He then went into detail about the purported bovine menace that heartland farmers must cope with on a daily basis.

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"Farm animals can at times be very dangerous," he said. "Take, for example, a cow who had just recently had a calf. You even walk too close to a cow, and it'll take you down and trample you into dust. And many farmers have a readily available gun just for those emergencies. Fumbling around with a lock while a cow or a bull or any other animal is going after your daughter or your son, you can't fumble around with a key or try and find a lockbox or put your thumb on a biometric key of some sort in your home while the danger is outside."

Limmer added that the legislation in question "puts those individuals in even more danger" than they would ordinarily face from their own cows.

Studies have indicated that cows kill less than two dozen Americans per year while firearm-related deaths annually total in the tens of thousands.

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