March 29, 1973 - Speaker: What will happen if you adopt this particular amendment is that you will be back here next year and you are going to change it to eighteen. What you are saying to young adults in the metro area near adjacent states is that you cannot drink here; you get in your car and you drive. What eighteen year old will not have it available to them in Minnesota? People came before the committee and said it is easier to obtain drugs in Minnesota than alcohol. I did not start out as a crusader to lower this particular age, I served on a subcommittee and I did not have the answers. But I think this is the answer, it is a big step. I want you to take it with me and vote down Mr. Kempe's amendment.
March 20, 1973 - Several bills are before the legislature this session to regulate the hearing aid industry. Most are licensing bills for dealers of hearing aids. However one bill introduced in the Rep. Mike Sieben and Senator Conzemius requires that before a dealer may sell a hearing aid the buyer must obtain a prescription from a doctor. This ensures that the hearing aid is indicated and needed. The Attorney General?s office has run into the problem of dealers selling the devices to people who didn?t need them, either unwittingly or knowingly. A spokesman from the Attorney General?s office says not all hearing problems can be helped by a hearing aid. There are many different types and the correct type, or strength, is not always being recommended. Other physical problems may lead someone to think he has a hearing problem when he does not Dealers are not necessarily qualified to discover problems that may create hearing loss or the appearance of hearing loss Some dealers sell them much like cars, with the price being determined by the bargaining power of the buyer. The manufacturers suggest list prices and some dealers sell above or below that price The AG?s office has had many complaints about abuses by hearing aid dealers and supposed discounts that weren?t really discounts.
March 20, 1973 - Speaker says on Dec. 16, 1971 he was in a restaurant with his wife. She was shot and killed by a man who was a paranoid schizophrenic with a long history of mental illness who had five handguns. The speaker prays no one listening has to go through such a horrendous trauma. His wife was alive and radiant one moment, and the next moment on the floor with her mouth and eyes open as if to say ?why me??. He says it isn?t fun to go to the movies anymore because of the violence depicted there, or to watch television. To be honest, he says, it really irritates him to think there even has to be a discussion on such an issue. Considering what?s happened in this country over the last five to ten years, the violence that we read in the newspapers, see on TV, the increasing violent crime in Minneapolis, 62 percent over last year, twenty five murders over a five month period, most by handgun, he thinks it would be quite obvious what has to be done. That is: to reduce easy availability to those unable to cope with society, and to severely punish those who commit crimes with firearms. He says we?re so concerned with violence in other parts of the world, such as Northern Ireland which had 350 killed over a five year period. Yet in the U.S. 50 people are shot to death each day by handgun, 500 or more are seriously wounded and disabled. He asks what?s wrong with a police permit or waiting period to obtain a handgun, or more stringent penalties against those who carry a concealed weapon without a permit or commit a crime with a firearm?
March 20, 1973 - Speaker talks about the effect of a proposed bill on gun control. He is concerned about red tape and procedures that would deny firearms to the disadvantaged. it would be impossible for the poor, the black, the Indians, the Chicanos to comply with them. This is substantive denial of due process of law. He talks about scenarios, asking what are the chances a sheriff at Cass Lake or Wounded Knee will give a gun to an Indian? The speaker cites Hubert Humphrey, who said one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. The speaker adds this is not to say firearms shouldn't be very carefully used. However, the right to bear arms is one safeguard against arbitrary government, against the tryanny which now appears remote now but has always been possible. For example, the Japanese Americans on the West Coast during WWII were stripped of their property and put in concentration camps. That was 30 years ago, more or less. It can happen; this bill makes it possible. Speaker is possibly Clyde Bellecourt, but is unknown for certain.
February 6, 1973 - Unknown speaker against abortion. He is a doctor who practices at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park Hospital. He says he'll resign from Mt. Sinai Hospital where he is on the courtesy staff. Talks about staff concerned about performing abortions. Says this decision will produce abortion mills.
February 6, 1973 - Speaker says MN has conscience law. Any type of pressure used by anyone in authority to make someone perform abortion against their conscience is against the law. MCCL
February 5, 1973 - Debate at Minnesota State Legislature over the Equal Rights Amendment. Includes various male speakers for and against.