Gun bills and the property tax battle

“SD Gov. Rhoden Signs More Pro-Gun Bills”

That was the headline in “American Hunter,” June 2025 Edition. It goes on to say that Gov. Rhoden signed into law SB100, which allows enhanced permit holders to carry a pistol on our six state universities and our four technical colleges.

Can you name all 10? Seriously! We have six state-sponsored universities: South Dakota State University (Go Jacks!) in Brookings, Dakota State University in Madison, University of South Dakota in Vermillion, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, Black Hills State University in Spearfish and—any guesses for the sixth state university?

Here’s a couple of clues: It’s really cold there, well all East River schools qualify, it has great snow geese hunting, hmm, its school mascot is the wolves. Yep! Northern State University in Aberdeen. Our four vocational colleges are in Sioux Falls, Watertown, Mitchell and Rapid City.

We have 10 institutes of higher learning with less than one million people. This is not counting the private colleges Augustana (Go Vikings!) in Sioux Falls, and Dakota Wesleyan in Mitchell, to name two. Getting back to concealed carry on these 10 campuses, is that a good idea?

I entered the House floor debate and basically said that if we don’t allow that we are announcing each campus as a gun-free zone. That means some lunatic can start shooting, killing and wounding with their only fear being law enforcement. All too often this has happened around the country. So, I say it’s a huge deterrent to anyone desiring to start shooting that any student or faculty could be armed to defend themselves.

House Bill 1218 deals with repealing “gun free” zones in restaurants and bars that serve alcohol. HB1222 allows firearms to be stored in vehicles on campus grounds by permit holders. So, yes, you can take, legally, your 870 shotgun to say SDSU to hunt pheasants and it is legal to store your shotgun in your vehicle as long as you have an enhanced permit. SB81 preventing the government from keeping record or registry of privately-owned firearms.

I think bills like these prove we live in the freest state in the union, but are we really free, per se, if we are being taxed out of our homes?

I ran for the legislature in the last election committed to getting some tax relief to the bill payers in this state who are homeowners. HB1019 “Eliminating certain property taxes levied on owner-occupied single family dwellings and to increase certain gross receipts tax rates and use tax rates.” What the bill was intended to do was raise our state sales tax from 4.2 percent to 5 percent which is what North Dakota currently pays (5 percent). The eight-tenths of a penny (totaling $280 million) then is earmarked to go to owner occupied homes. This also pertains to farmers and ranchers as their home dwelling is separated from their ag land.

The beauty of this bill is it’s paid for up front; no cost to the county, schools or any towns. This results in $417 per $100K assessment of your home. If you’re assessed at $500K like my mobile home is (yep! A 1998 trailer home that’s a half million dollar assessment!), it would reduce your property taxes. $417x5=$2,085.

I had to hoghouse this bill in order to get a floor vote of 35 yeas, 34 nays with one absent. We needed 47 yeas as it increases sales tax eight-tenths of a penny. That’s 3¢ on a $4 loaf of bread. This is why we need help when we go into session January 2026. We need to sell the point that the state economy will explode if every homeowner has an extra $1,500-$2,500 to spend. This spending would be at only 5 percent sales tax rate! We need to get that point across to get this needed legislation to the finish line.