Rep. Tony Cornish surely is right about a new deadly force law he has introduced: It will likely have popular support. But it won’t make the public more safe, and it will make the job of law enforcement more difficult, not easier.

It also will create an incentive for more violence in an already violent society.

Current law allows people to use deadly force if someone is breaking into their home. Cornish, R-Vernon Center, would expand that to include their car or bicycle.

The bill also calls for allowing those threatened to be able to use whatever force necessary to defend themselves and won’t have to worry about prosecution. If someone pulls a knife, they can pull a gun.

The bill also expands the circumstance in which one can use deadly force. Current law provides that people can use deadly force if they are threatened with permanent bodily harm or injury. Cornish would loosen that requirement to “temporary” bodily harm.

A temporary injury could mean a broken finger, says Mankato Public Safety Director Jerry Huettl. If someone in a bar threatens to break another person’s finger, that person — possibly carrying a concealed weapon that the Legislature provided rights for a few years ago — could lock and load and shoot the threatening person without legal consequence.

Maybe the justice system would not allow such an extreme injustice, but Cornish’s legislation makes it more possible.

The proposed law creates an incentive for violence. If the plan is approved, any “citizen” who also happens to have a propensity for getting liquored up and picking fights at saloons will have to worry less about facing prosecution.

Huettl calls the legislation “crazy,” and Cornish conceded law enforcement will fight it. Unfortunately, police officers will pay once again for the decisions of politicians to create laws that really don’t make average people more safe, but create more stressful and unsafe situations for police officers.

The legislation has been pushed by the National Rifle Association and several states have approved it. Still, it

doesn’t have universal support. Wyoming and Virginia, considered gun-friendly states, have rejected it.

Cornish sincerely believes that his bill will help the public be more safe when police are not around, but he offers no real evidence for this.

In fact, there appears to be evidence to the contrary. In three cases in Florida, a similar law is being used as a defense for a tow-truck driver who shot someone driving away without paying, someone who got into a fight and then shot his opponent and a gang-related incident where two people were killed.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, named after James Brady, who took a permanently disabling bullet during the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, said “a handful of overly aggressive individuals are using (the laws) as a defense for actions that appear to go beyond the pale of self-defense.”

Cornish rejects such arguments, saying the 2003 concealed handgun legislation did not create the violence opponents said it would.

The other side of that argument, however, is that it didn’t make people safer. Violent felonies in Minnesota were up 2.2 percent in 2004, a year after people could carry more guns. If the fact that 15,000 Minnesotans now could be carrying a concealed gun for self defense was supposed to make criminals think twice, those criminals don’t appear to be too worried.

The real criminals also won’t be deterred by Cornish’s proposal.