Gabby Giffords joins Walz in call for assault weapons ban during Waconia town hall

Physicians, educators, parents and firearms safety advocates called for action on gun violence Saturday at a town hall in Waconia, as Democrats sought to amp up pressure on fellow Minnesota lawmakers.

Gov. Tim Walz and several legislators appeared at the ticketed town hall at Waconia High School, bringing the discussion about guns out of the State Capitol and into the community after lawmakers reached an impasse in negotiations. More than 800 attended the event.

The governor has renewed a push to ban assault weapons in Minnesota in the weeks after a shooter killed two children and injured 28 at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis.

“If we are truly going to hold true to the Minnesota that we believe in, we have to be the next state to move on this and show the rest of the country,” said Walz, who is seeking re-election.

Walz noted that Vice President JD Vance once said that mass shootings are a fact of life.

“If that’s true, it’s the life that we have chosen to create,” Walz said, “and ... we can choose to create a different way.”

Walz was joined on stage by former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, an Arizona representative who retired from Congress after surviving a gunshot to the head in an attempted assassination in 2011. In the years since, she has become a leading advocate for gun safety legislation. She urged the crowd to “never stop fighting” for change in Minnesota.

Tess Rada, whose daughter is a third-grader at Annunciation, asked the audience to imagine explaining why the shooting happened to their child, or being a teacher having to throw their body over a child to shield them from gunfire. Rada, who teaches in Waconia, said her students are still innocent, while those at Annunciation were forced to grow up in the 2½ minutes it took the shooter to carry out the attack.

Rada said she saw the church pews at Annunciation gouged by bullets, and thought about what the rounds did to the children’s bodies.

“We must do everything to protect our kids,” she said, adding: “No single law will be enough, but doing nothing is unforgiveable.”

Dr. Tim Kummer, the first physician on the scene at Annunciation, said he had cared for many victims of gun violence in his career. The morning of the Annunciation shooting, he said, was different.

“I saw horror in the eyes of so many children, fear of parents desperate to know if their child was alive,” Kummer said, “and I heard screams of mothers and fathers when they were told their child was murdered. Those memories do not fade.”

“These weapons turn survivable injuries into fatal ones,” Kummer said. “They turn small tragedies into mass tragedies.”

The town hall came after talks about a special legislative session to address gun violence broke down. In the days after the mass shooting at Annunciation, Walz vowed to call lawmakers back to St. Paul.

But Republican leaders rejected a Democratic proposal that included an assault weapons ban as well as GOP priorities, such as funding for mental health. Because of the close divide in the Legislature, Democrats need some Republican buy-in to advance legislation.

“It’s become clear, I think, to everyone what should have been obvious from the start — that the governor’s talk of a special session has been a partisan political stunt from the beginning,” House GOP floor leader Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, said at the time at a State Capitol news conference.

After the talks broke down, Walz said he would host town halls focused on an assault weapons ban.

“We have to keep the conversation going,” Stephenson said. “We have to keep the momentum building.”

The event was held in the districts of Sen. Julia Coleman and Rep. Jim Nash, both Republicans from Waconia. Coleman was not available for comment, and Nash did not respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this week, Alex Plechash, chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota, said he wasn’t surprised to see the DFL hold town halls calling for gun restrictions. While Plechash said he has sympathy for Giffords, Republicans have a fundamentally different view on how to address gun violence.

“It’s not about the gun,” he said. “It’s about what prompts somebody to do a violent act in the first place.”

Plechash said Republicans want to focus on the root causes of gun violence, such as mental health and gang activity.

Diane Nagell, 74, and Gail Perelstein, 72, traveled from the inner suburbs of Minneapolis to attend the town hall. Nagell, a nurse, said she has seen firsthand the damage of gun violence and felt energized by the commitment among those in the room to do something. She said her daughter is a teacher who has had to develop a plan for what to do if a shooter enters her school.

“That’s scary,” Nagell said. “I’m older, and we never had to worry about things like that. You know, it’s just a violent world for our children.”

Perelstein, a retired teacher, said she was glad she attended.

“I just wish there’d be more people who are not as interested, who would be,” Perelstein said. “It’s like preaching to the choir.”

Minnesota Star Tribune reporter Ryan Faircloth contributed to this story.