Here in Chaska, Minn., where I have been a police officer since 1976 and chief of police since 2000, we do not see much gun crime. It is one reason why our city has been listed as one of the best places to live in America.

Our low level of gun crime is no accident. We have to work at it. And let me tell you, low levels of gun crime are not good enough. Anyone who has seen the consequences of a shooting or faced a dangerous person wielding a gun on the street -- especially the police officers who have to face situations like that -- will tell you that just one such incident is one too many.

To fight gun crime and keep our streets safe, our officers rely on the public safety laws that the Minnesota Legislature has put in place to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous and prohibited people in our community and state.

I do not always agree with the laws our Legislature enacts. In fact, as chairman of the Firearms Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), I frequently am the voice of my peers when criticizing politicians both in St. Paul and in Washington for passing the buck when it comes to closing loopholes in our gun laws that can lead to illegal guns on the streets.

I, along with the IACP, the Police Foundation, the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association and others, now strongly urge Congress not to enact legislation that clearly would undermine even the modest framework of laws that we have in place to protect our communities.

The bill in question, HR 822, would force Minnesota to recognize concealed carry (gun) permits from every other state that issues them -- no matter how easy it is get a permit in another state, how low the criteria, and no matter who some other state chooses to give one to.

That means that officers in Minnesota would have to recognize and honor permits from states that, unlike Minnesota, give them to people with certain criminal records, suspected gang members, teenagers, and people who have not been trained to use a gun safely or proficiently.

People who would never qualify for a permit if they lived in Minnesota would nonetheless be able to carry a concealed, loaded handgun in our communities.

This is Congress at its worst, telling states that they know best when it comes to public safety laws and putting our communities at risk. Our message to those in Congress is that they have no idea how much more dicey and complicated a police officer's job would become if this became law.

Congress does not seem to realize that my officers would have no reliable way to verify if an out-of-state permit is valid. If someone from another state is pulled over in Chaska with a loaded 9-millimeter and presents a permit from Arizona, New York, Florida or Virginia, the officer would have to simply make a judgment call about whether the permit is real. The officer can't scan it, and cannot call a hot line -- no validating database exists. The officer would just have to decide, quickly, whether to trust that this person with a loaded gun is carrying that gun legally.

This isn't just a hypothetical. In an infamous case, police in Pennsylvania learned the hard way when their state made a bad decision to recognize permits from lots of other states, including Florida. A man named Marqus Hill, whose previous concealed carry permit had been revoked when he was charged with attempted murder, got a new out-of-state permit from Florida. The Philadelphia police had to recognize it. Hill later used his gun to murder an 18-year-old young man on the streets of Philadelphia.

That kind of gun violence is every family's worst nightmare -- and it's also a nightmare for the police officers who put their lives on the line to protect our communities.

I would not want a Marqus Hill carrying a loaded gun here in Chaska, and I certainly do not want our officers handcuffed by an ambiguous situation that this legislation would create. In Minnesota, we have chosen our own set of laws to try and ensure that he could not get a permit to carry a gun. It should stay that way.

If the gun lobby's allies in Congress get their way, and another state gives a permit to the next Marqus Hill, police won't have the authority to stop him until he starts shooting and the damage is already done.

That is not something I want to have to live with -- and that makes me wonder how some members of Congress could live with it, unless, of course, they think it is not their problem.

Scott Knight is chief of police in Chaska.