There are still two aspects of the law that are looming for me.
One is that Blevins is serving time for defending himself under a dumb interpretation of a law that, in most states, would be assault with a deadly weapon. I know that New York conflates the words "assault" and "battery." Still, in most states, an assault happens when you're using a threat to alter a person's state of mind. In the Blevins case, it's undisputed that no battery occurred, because nobody was physically injured. It's also not disputed that Blevins responded to a threat with a deadly weapon from his attacker.
The thing is, Minnesota doesn't use the word "deadly" in regard to the weapon in he law. They use the word "dangerous" in the law.
The element of being dangerous is what makes a weapon a weapon in the first place.
Specifically in the Blevins case, all of the weapons involved were blades, and therefore deadly. Still, the decision on the Blevins case didn't change the wording.
That means that the jury instructions are going to be to find a defender guilty of assault with a "dangerous" weapon if he or she didn't exhaust all retreat options before displaying the weapon. That broadens he meaning of "weapon" to possibly including any weapon including less lethal pistols, tasers, or pepper spray. If you opt for a bench trial, as Blevins did, you just need to draw a judge that takes a broad interpretation of the word "dangerous" in order to end up in prison for seven to ten years for showing, not even using, showing a taser in self-defense without running away.
That's how nuts this law can actually be in practice.
Still, the second take away is that talking about how dumb this policy is makes me happy that I live in this country.
I'm glad that I don't live in Minnesota. Still, I think that most citizens in this country, regardless of party, would agree that Minnesota has gone full moron with this policy.
Minnesota is the worst state in the country in regard to self-defense law; but, it's not a reason to leave the country. You can hop over to any of the neighboring states and live under better laws.
What you don't want to do, if you're in Minnesota, is go North.
Canada makes Minnesota look like Texas. Jessica Yaniv was arrested and jailed because he showed that he had a taser during a YouTube debate. Forget about getting arrested because you displayed your taser or pepper spray to stop an attacker -- in Canada, you'll get arrested for mere possession.
The further point to be made is that, when people say that nobody is coming for my guns or my right to self-defense, I have no reason to believe them. I know how many of the people who espouse these controls on weapons and support Duty to Die laws are talking about moving to Canada or Europe if Trump gets elected.
Guess what, Minnesota is still better on those policies than Canada and most of Europe. Hell, Minnesota is better than most of the world on those policies. It's just the worst state in this country on those policies.