Scores rally outside State Capitol for assault weapons ban

Emily Coveyou was heartbroken for co-workers related to kids involved in the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting. And when she looks at Lenny, her copper-haired daughter of 17 months, she’s thinking more about what she would say at her child’s funeral than her graduation party.

“That’s not the way it should be for anyone,” Coveyou said, glancing at her daughter waddling toward the State Capitol Saturday. “That takes a lot of the joy out of life.”

That’s why Coveyou and more than 100 others rallied on the Capitol steps Saturday, a month to the day after the Annunciation shooting, to demand that Gov. Tim Walz calls a special legislative session to pass a ban on assault weapons.

Many at the rally were parents and grandparents with signs that read “Protect kids, restrict guns” and “Move your feet.” Some were pastors, kids stomping in Crocs shoes or teachers, who all chanted “Not one more!”

A few wept as Tess Rada, whose daughter was in the church when the shooting happened, read the names of children killed in school shootings who “never got to finish being kids.” Their names echoed toward the Cathedral of St. Paul at the other end of John Ireland Boulevard, where a Mass was being held for victims of the Annunciation shooting.

Brittany Haeg’s 6-year-old son was one of those wounded in the shooting. As Haeg described his injuries — how bullets had ripped through his spleen, grazed his skull and scattered shrapnel into his side — she demanded that legislators act.

“No child should live in fear of guns. No family should bury their children because adults refuse to act,” Haeg said. “We cannot wait for the regular session. We cannot wait for the next election. We cannot wait. The cost is too high.”

“Every single Minnesotan I know, every single neighbor, every single co-worker, every single family member, every single parishioner that I know, says those [steps] are the bare minimum of what we ought to do to stop gun violence in Minnesota. But our Legislature says it’s too much,” Carter said.

“But we will pass those laws, and I’m working with Mayor [Jacob] Frey and other mayors to recruit other cities to pass those laws as well. We’re going to force a conversation in our state.”

Sara Pohlad hummed a song to end the rally, as rallygoers chanted “There’s no rest.” Their voices rose as the song progressed, but little Lenny Coveyou cooed amid their cries. Leaving the Capitol, Emily Coveyou said she hopes lawmakers take action.

“You don’t need to have a kid to feel in your heart that something’s not right,” she said. “Something’s got to change. Being a parent shouldn’t impact that because we’re all people. We’re a community.”