Olson: Want new gun restrictions? Turn the suburbs blue.

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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz appeared on the verge of tears at a Capitol news conference earlier this month as he prepared to sign two executive orders designed to curb gun violence.

These were not celebratory signings. They represented incremental progress on gun safety, a long way from the bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines Walz wanted. He wanted to convene the Legislature in a special session right after the Aug. 27 Annunciation Catholic Church shooting to take up such measures.

Walz was angry and emotional.

“There’s too damn many guns and the wrong types of guns on the street, and I don’t want to hear, ‘How do you define assault weapon?’” Walz said. “I damn sure can assign what it is and describe what it is and tell you what it does and unfortunately we have a whole bunch of parents now who know a lot more about what these weapons were meant to do.”

He stressed the obvious: Assault rifles aren’t meant for hunting or sport. They’re designed to cause maximum carnage in a short amount of time.

The church shooter brought three legally acquired weapons: a semiautomatic assault-style AR-15, a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun and a 9 mm pistol.

After the attack, Walz called on the Legislature to use the moment to pass tough new gun laws in a special session. But there were no Republican votes for that effort and without them, there would be no special session and no new laws.

Instead, the Senate held a hearing led by Judiciary Chairman Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park. Through two days of sessions, parents, physicians and faith leaders pleaded in vain for new gun restrictions.

At one point, Sen. Heather Gustafson, DFL-Vadnais Heights, looked across the table to her Republican counterparts and asked if any would be willing to talk about concepts without committing to supporting a bill. She found no takers.

Gun advocates, predictably, urged inaction, wielding the Second Amendment as their protection. Meanwhile, a divided state House of Representatives, under the leadership of Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, stood on the sidelines, saying that no new gun laws were needed.

As Walz signed those orders, there were no Republicans by his side. No surprise there. Had there been at least one or two willing Republican legislators, Walz could have been signing much stronger measures.

But the Annunciation shooting, on the heels of the shooting deaths of former DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman, her husband, Mark, and their dog, Gilbert, still failed to move the GOP into meaningful action.

Walz blamed Demuth, who is running to succeed him as governor, for the inaction on guns. Fair enough.

But she had help. Lots of it. To pass the House, a bill needs at least 68 votes. That means Demuth is just one of 67 House Republicans who proved unwilling to buck the gun lobby. So where does the buck stop?

Six months ago, in the middle of the night in my vacation rental on Bondi Beach, Australia, I began to receive texts about the shootings of the Hortmans and the attack on DFL Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. I passed much of the next day along the beach trying to process shock, anger and grief, watching surfers, swimmers and children in the grass chasing away the scavenging gulls and ibis.

Australia determinedly confronted, and significantly curbed, mass gun violence after the 1996 massacre in Port Arthur, a tourist town in the island-state of Tasmania south of the mainland.

Australian leaders back then tightened gun laws. They began with a national gun buyback program, and it was a success. The nation came to an agreement that gun ownership should be considered a privilege, not a right.

While Australians supported the notion that many people had a legitimate need for firearms — farmers, for instance — buying a gun required an acceptable purpose.

But laws won’t stop every determined madman. Earlier this month, Bondi Beach was struck by two hate-inspired extremists who opened fire on a beachfront Hanukkah celebration, killing 15 people and wounding at least 40 others. On a glorious summer evening, in a matter of seconds, Bondi became just like Port Arthur, Columbine and Sandy Hook, a place name synonymous with a massacre.

At home and abroad, the battle against gun violence is far from over. The difference is the Australians are acting. Local and national leaders there acknowledged that gun safety isn’t a one-and-done proposition and that hard work remains.

Meanwhile in Minnesota, Democrats can’t find a single Republican willing to work on passing safe storage requirements, something as anodyne as requiring unattended guns to be unloaded and locked when unattended.

Regarding Republican entrenchment on gun bills, Latz asked rhetorically in an interview, “How many mass deaths do you need to have before there’s the political will to say enough is enough?”

Latz and the DFL say they are ready to go with more restrictions. They will try, but as it did last fall and as it will next fall, the road to new gun laws lies in the purple suburban districts held by Republicans. Flip those seats and the bigger changes can be made.

But if Republicans win the governor’s office or pick up more legislative seats in November 2026, there will be no new gun safety measures in the foreseeable future.

Would bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines end the violence? No. Australia is a safe nation but was just terrorized by two committed killers.