Democrats once again call for assault weapons ban after Annunciation shooting

After a summer punctuated by two of the most high-profile shootings in Minnesota history, state Democrats are calling for tougher gun control measures at the city, state and federal levels.

Democratic officials vowed to push for a ban on assault rifles Thursday at a news conference in Minneapolis City Hall, arguing that prohibiting the powerful weapons will save lives.

“We’re not talking about your father’s hunting rifle here,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said. “We’re talking about guns that are built to pierce armor and kill people.”

Frey made his comments after a shooter killed two children and injured 18 more children and adults during a back-to-school Mass at Annunciation Catholic Church on Wednesday in south Minneapolis. He said he would work with the City Council to ban the weapons in Minneapolis.

But any proposal to ban assault rifles at the state or federal level would require bipartisan support, and Republicans have been largely quiet on gun policy solutions in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

Minnesota’s Republican delegation in Washington offered prayers for the victims’ families but didn’t immediately comment on Democrats’ calls to ban assault weapons. In Minnesota, GOP lawmakers were skeptical the proposal could pass the Legislature, where the House is tied and Democrats control the Senate by a single vote.

“The policy and legal questions around an assault weapons ban are a lot more complicated than I think what’s being presented,” said state Rep. Harry Niska, the No. 2 Republican in the House. “That’s the real reason why I don’t think there’s been progress on it in Minnesota.”

When Democrats held the Minnesota House and Senate in 2023 and 2024, they expanded background checks for gun sales and transfers. They also passed a red flag law allowing people to petition a judge to take away guns from anyone who is deemed dangerous.

But efforts to ban assault weapons didn’t get enough support to become law.

Gov. Tim Walz said the state is reeling from a violent summer that started with the fatal shooting of House DFL leader Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, inside their Brooklyn Park home in June. The gunman also shot and injured state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette.

Walz spoke with President Donald Trump, one of his biggest political foes, after the shooting at Annunciation Church. He said the phone call showed an openness to dialogue across the political aisle on how to prevent these killings.

“It is traumatic,” Walz said. “I think this is a state where any of these shootings is too many but I think something like the assassination of Melissa and Mark [Hortman] and now this just unimaginable killing children in their pew.”

Minnesota’s U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, said she supports gun violence deterrents, such as assault weapon bans, more scrutiny in background checks and red flag laws.

She noted a gun safety bill passed in 2022 closed the so-called “boyfriend loophole” and created stiffer penalties for gun trafficking.

“That took 10 years to get that done,” Klobuchar said. “So these things are frustrating. Because we should be doing all and above these things [to crack down on gun violence].”

U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, also a Minnesota Democrat, said Congress has not made “nearly the headway that we should have because this issue has become so politicized.”

As Democratic state lawmakers vowed to push for change, gun rights supporters resisted calls for an assault weapons ban. The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus vowed in a statement Thursday to fight any legislative proposals seeking to ban “commonly owned semiautomatic firearms and standard-capacity magazines.”

Ten states and the District of Columbia have banned assault weapons, and federal law prohibited them until 2004. The U.S. Supreme Court this summer declined to take up challenges to an assault weapons ban in Maryland and a ban on high-capacity magazines in Rhode Island.

Niska said both parties must focus on broader efforts to address school safety, crime and mental health issues. He wants the Legislature to take another look at a previous request by the Minnesota Catholic Conference to extend school security funding grants to nonpublic schools.

Rep. Paul Novotny, R-Elk River, who co-chairs the House Public Safety Committee, said he would oppose any bills banning assault rifles.

“A Minnesota ban on assault weapons is not going to make a difference,” Novotny said. “We have a mental illness problem in this state and in this country that needs to be addressed.”

Some legislative Republicans and conservatives on social media homed in on Westman’s gender identity, likening identifying as transgender to mental illness and laying blame with supporters of transgender rights. According to court records, Westman’s mother applied to change her child’s name in 2019 because she identified as female.

Rep. Leigh Finke, DFL-St. Paul, one of the first transgender legislators in Minnesota history, said she was sad that discussion of Westman’s possible gender identity would pull attention away from the children killed and families forever changed by Wednesday’s shooting.

“This is not an identity problem,” Finke said. “Violence in America is not a transgender issue. It crosses everything. It’s everywhere.”

Before Wednesday’s attack, Westman posted two videos to YouTube glorifying mass killers and fixating on school shootings. In one of the videos, someone stabs a drawing of the interior of Annunciation Church. Written in white on a black handgun in the video are the words, “there is no message.”

“If the shooter had an ideology,” Sen. Zaynab Mohamed, DFL-Minneapolis, said, “it was one of hatred of humanity.

“They expressed admiration of mass shooters who have targeted Jews and Muslims and Christians and progressives and children. This is not part of any community’s … identity. It’s pure hate.”