New gun limits pitched by Walz and Democrats face GOP resistance

Gov. Tim Walz renewed his push to tackle gun violence prevention on Feb. 24, asking lawmakers in Minnesota’s divided Legislature to meet the moment after last year’s killing of two schoolchildren at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis.

Walz, who will leave the governor’s office next year, has thrown his remaining political capital at the push to restrict access to guns. He unveiled a sweeping package of more than a dozen new gun proposals in a news conference, encouraging Annunciation families and other advocates to keep pressuring him and legislators as the session continues.

“This is a time for bipartisan action around an issue that tore at the heart,” Walz said, flanked by DFL lawmakers and violence prevention advocates. “And we owe it to the Annunciation families not to have that just be another statistic in the book. In Minnesota, that was the final straw.”

But the effort hit an early roadblock later in the afternoon when the highest-profile parts of Walz’s proposed package, bans on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, failed on party-line votes in their first committee stop.

The GOP has instead focused its legislative response to the Annunciation shooting on school safety and mental health — and specifically not guns.

“We’ve got to have a larger view of public safety, not just that one issue,” said Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks.

Another key legislator, Sen. Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, said he’s hopeful for bipartisan support this session but admitted that “we’ve got our work cut out for us.” Democrats hold a one-seat majority in the Senate and are tied with Republicans in the House, so some Republican support is needed for any bill to become law.

Lydia Kaiser, an eighth-grade student at Annunciation, was one of two students who survived gunshot wounds to the head. In brief remarks to reporters at the news conference, she described how she and her fellow students hid beneath the pews as 116 bullets were fired through the church’s stained-glass windows, and she pleaded with legislators to take action.

“All children have the right to live free from gun violence,” Kaiser said. “Elected officials have a duty to protect us from guns.”

Walz’s package is mostly made up of gun-related policy proposals, including a ban on “ghost guns,” which are privately made firearms without serial numbers, and requirements that lost and stolen firearms be reported to law enforcement. Other provisions would allow cities to enact their own gun rules and would require gun owners to maintain liability insurance.

“If you have a dog or a trampoline, you pay more for your insurance because your risk is greater. The same thing is true of guns, but that has never been added,” Walz said of his insurance proposal.

Bryan Strawser, chair of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, said his group opposes the gun restrictions proposed by Walz and other DFLers. He said criminals aren’t going to follow requirements to carry liability insurance or comply with gun bans on college campuses, among other things.

“I think they hold the stance that we do on the gun legislation,” he said.

Walz’s package does call for expanded access to mental health services and several school safety measures. While there could be bipartisan support for such measures, Walz said his entire package should be passed into law — especially the gun-control pieces. He predicted Republicans would face a “heavy storm” from voters this fall if they don’t support them.

“And I say that as someone who evolved on this issue and moved along as our country moved,” said Walz, who was once a vocal supporter of gun rights.

Dozens of advocates on both sides of the issue packed a committee room and spilled into an overflow room in the afternoon to watch lawmakers take testimony and debate the bans on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.

The parents of Moyski, one of the two children killed in the Annunciation shooting, pleaded with lawmakers in the committee to take action.

Rep. Paul Novotny, the GOP co-chair of the House public safety committee, said the proposed assault-style weapon ban would be “unenforceable” given its scope and magnitude, be in conflict with previous Supreme Court decisions and would make illegal guns used for innocent hobbies like squirrel hunting.

“This bill, I think, would most likely not achieve the goals that it’s proposed to solve,” he said.

Just before the vote on an assault-style weapons ban, bill sponsor Rep. Emma Greenman, DFL-Minneapolis, read aloud a letter from a 10-year-old Annunciation student recounting the shooting and imploring lawmakers to “do something to make it right.”

“We need to listen to the people and the kids. These kids are so clear,” she said. “They’re saying ‘choose us, not guns.’ And we have that choice tonight.”

Both bills failed on 10-10 party-line votes. Their sponsors said they’d keep fighting for them, but their legislative path is unclear.