What could a Minnesota assault weapons ban look like?

Minnesota would become the 12th state in the nation to outlaw some of the guns used in last week’s mass shooting at Annunciation Church if politicians follow through and succeed in their efforts to ban assault weapons.

The parameters of a ban haven’t been spelled out, nor is it known if enough state lawmakers would support restrictions. Gov. Tim Walz is considering calling a special session for a vote.

Under assault-style weapons bans already in place in states ranging from California to Connecticut, two of the three firearms that Robin Westman used to attack school children would have been illegal based on their high-capacity magazines. The detachable components, which allow bullets to be fed to the firing chamber, allowed Westman to quickly shoot more than 100 rounds through stained glass windows outside the church’s main entrance. Two children died and 21 other people were injured as the bullets struck sections of pews during a morning service. Westman died by suicide at the scene.

“These are weapons that belong on a battlefield, not on our streets,” said state Sen. Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, who has pushed for stricter gun laws.

Latz said he and Sen. Zaynab Mohamed, DFL-Minneapolis, will co-chair a working group to consider new restrictions, including a ban on rifles and pistols commonly used in mass shootings.

“There’s a lot of steps we can and should take,” Latz said. “It’s a matter of political will to do it. … None of this would infringe on the Second Amendment."

At the State Capitol in 2023, a bill to ban assault-style weapons went nowhere.

The state also tried to outlaw binary triggers, an aftermarket accessory that can be added to guns to accelerate their rate of fire. Last month, a Ramsey County judge struck down the ban, ruling that the provision was unconstitutionally buried in a 1,400-page 2024 tax omnibus bill.

According to police, Westman was armed with a rifle, a pump-action shotgun and two handguns during last week’s shooting. Two of those weapons would be considered assault weapons under some other states’ laws because Westman added high-capacity magazines. One was a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle assembled from parts made by various companies. The other was a semiautomatic Taurus GCX2 9mm pistol. Semiautomatic guns fire once for each pull of the trigger without requiring manual reloading.

Westman also had a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun with a pistol grip.

Fully automatic machine guns are prohibited for civilian use unless they are vintage weapons made before Congress acted in 1986. A special license is needed to acquire them.

Spencer Myers, state and local policy attorney for the Giffords Law Center, a gun safety organization in Washington, D.C., said assault-style weapons bans adopted by individual states are still undergoing legal challenges. But so far, he said, they have repeatedly been found to be in line with the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

Congress passed a federal ban against assault-style weapons in 1994 under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. But the law expired after 10 years and hasn’t been renewed.

Since then, Myers said, some states have acted on their own. Rhode Island’s law, the latest, will go into effect in June 2026. At that point, 11 states and the District of Columbia will have assault-style weapons bans. California in 1989 was the first state to enact such a law.

“States are saying, ‘If the federal government won’t step up, then we will,’ ” Myers said. “People want it for the safety in their communities.”

Minnesota legislators could resurrect a bill introduced in 2023 by Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville. His definition of assault-style weapons included a long list of specific firearms, including Colt AR-15 semiautomatic rifle types, Avtomat Kalashnikov (AK-47) semiautomatic rifle types and Uzi semiautomatic pistol and carbine types. The bill defined “large-capacity” magazines as any feeding device capable of accepting more than 10 rounds.

Gun owners have criticized assault-style weapons bans as ineffective because they don’t remove massive existing inventories already in circulation. Marty’s bill included provisions for existing owners of assault-style weapons to register them, safely store them and restrict where they could be used.

He said Minnesota would probably look at what other states have done if Walz calls a special session.