The Double-Cross
State Rep. Dale Hargens betrays gun owners
By Zach Lautenschlager
Communications Director
(October 16, 2006) - Democrat Dale Hargens will tell you he’s pro-gun.
In fact, he has made multiple campaign promises to support your gun rights.
But his voting record tells a very different story.
In 2002, state Rep. Hargens (D-Beadle, Hand and Jerauld Counties) responded to South Dakota Gun Owners’ candidate survey. SDGO sends out a no-nonsense questionnaire before the elections. Each candidate is asked to give yes-or-no answers to specific gun rights questions and then to sign the questionnaire.
In his survey, Rep. Hargens promised gun owners that he would oppose new concealed pistol permit restrictions, the Lautenberg gun ban and several other anti-gun measures. He also pledged his support for the Right to Self-defense and promised to introduce a Vermont-style Right to Carry bill.
Since then he has betrayed gun owners and broken every single one of these campaign promises.
Making Pistol Permits Hard to Get
Rep. Hargens promised in April of 2002 that he would “oppose legislation adding further restrictions, such as fingerprinting or firearms training, as requirements for obtaining a concealed pistol permit.” He also promised to “oppose putting a photo ID on the permit.”
Less than one year later, he was a co-sponsor on a bill that would have raised the price of the permit with a new photo ID requirement. Worse yet, Hargens’ bill would have allowed state bureaucrats to add any other new requirements they saw fit.
Restrictions like expensive fingerprinting, government mandated firearms training, proficiency testing, further age limit restrictions, and any number of other infringements already forced on other states, could have been bureaucratically imposed here with little or no accountability to the people of South Dakota.
Currently, new pistol permit restrictions must receive four affirmative votes from the Legislature and be signed by the governor before they can be made law. This means that the people have a much better chance of stopping them. But Hargens’ bill would have thrown the door open for unaccountable bureaucrats to create the very restrictions he said he opposed.
Stabbing Gun Owners in the Back
Current state law places an entangling web of restrictions on the right to carry a handgun for self-defense.
South Dakota’s pistol permit requirement has created a jumble of laws regulating when, where and how law-abiding gun owners can exercise their right to keep and bear arms. One misstep (carrying in a so-called “gun free zone,” or carrying under the seat of the car instead of on the dash) can result in a Class 1 misdemeanor, a hefty $1000 fine and a year in jail.
Statistics demonstrate that this kind of anti-gun law actually encourages crime by discouraging law-abiding citizens from carrying a handgun for self-defense. The state of Vermont has proven that recognizing the right of the people to bear arms decreases crime. In Vermont, anyone can carry a handgun openly or concealed without a permit. And Vermont’s violent crime rate is even lower than South Dakota’s.
Rep. Hargens had pledged to sponsor legislation “which would allow citizens to carry firearms, openly or concealed, without a permit.” In 2004, SDGO called for legislation that would have done just that. The bill would simply have repealed all of the entangling restrictions on the right to bear arms in a vehicle. Citizens would have been allowed to carry firearms in their vehicles, openly or concealed, without a permit.
When Rep. Hargens was asked to carry the bill, he made the commitment to be the prime sponsor. But when anti-gun law-enforcement bureaucrats opposed it, Hargens broke his campaign pledge and withdrew his support. He then did a complete flip-flop and helped the anti-gunners kill the Right to Carry bill he had promised to support.
Forcing the Lautenberg Gun Ban on South Dakota
The hated federal Lautenberg gun ban has stripped thousands of ordinary citizens of their gun rights for life. Once the anti-gunners passed the ban on the national level, they began working to entrench it by passing it in as many states as possible.
In his survey, Rep. Hargens promised to “oppose any attempt to write the Lautenberg gun ban into South Dakota law.” But just last year he voted to put the Lautenberg ban on the books in South Dakota.
Pitting Police Against Gun Owners
Most law officers who actually work the street know that more guns in the hands of the law-abiding means less crime.
Unfortunately, these fine men and women are often betrayed and overruled by the bureaucratic talking heads of their departments. Some of these high-level appointees have a long anti-gun track record in South Dakota.
When these anti-gun police bureaucrats demanded a central registry which pitted the officer on the street against law-abiding gun owners, Rep. Hargens worked hand-in-hand to help them get it.
In 2005, Hargens co-sponsored a bill to create a database that profiles concealed pistol permit holders similar to the way that sex offenders are profiled in the Sex Offender Registry.
This new database labels gun owners as dangerous and encourages officers to treat them as a threat. It is built on the idea that a person with a permit to carry a gun for self-defense is more likely to be dangerous than someone who doesn’t have a permit.
In reality, permit holders are consistently among the most law-abiding citizens of the state. But the anti-gun crowd has never paid much attention to the facts. They have long wanted the ability to profile gun owners during traffic stops or any other highway or domestic situations. Anti-gun Sen. J.P. Duniphan, who supported the database with Rep. Hargens, said it best.
“I think any tool we can make to make our law-enforcement safer, and yes, I hope they have a heightened awareness if they know a gun is in the car, because, potentially, their life may depend on it,” Duniphan said, speaking specifically about the central registry for pistol permit holders.
In other words, anyone who undergoes a background check and expends all the time and effort to legally carry a handgun for self-defense suddenly becomes a potential cop killer.
Denying the Right to Self-Defense
Earlier this year, SDGO members helped push a Right to Self-Defense bill through the state Legislature. The bill reinforced your right to stand your ground. It clarified that you can use deadly force to protect yourself, your family and anyone else threatened with violent assault.
Most importantly, the Right to Self-Defense bill established that you do not have a duty to retreat from anywhere you have a right to be. This means that if you are forced to defend yourself at home or abroad, you can’t be hauled into court later simply because you tried to protect innocent life.
This is the kind of common sense that would seem obvious. In his survey, Rep. Hargens affirmed that he “believes an individual has the right to use deadly force in defending innocent life from violent assault, both in or away from the home.”
But when faced with a real-live issue, Rep. Hargens flip-flopped once again and voted against the Right to Self-Defense bill. As the House Minority Leader, he also led his entire party in voting against the bill.
Holding Politicians Accountable
According to a recent article in the Huron Plainsman, Rep. Hargens believes that “candidates for the state Legislature should be held accountable for campaign promises that don’t always match their voting records.”
“We need to dig in and show what they have stood for in the past,” said Hargens.
Of course, as the ranking House Democrat, Hargens was speaking of his Republican opponents. But a growing number of gun owners believe that it’s time to apply this advice to Hargens himself.