When Tim Walz was introduced as Kamala Harris's running mate last year, the liberal media and Democratic pundits were quick to talk up his supposed support for the Second Amendment. He's a gun owner! He hunts! He once had an "A" rating from the NRA! How on earth could he be considered anti-gun?
Well, his support for things like an assault weapons ban, for one. Americans didn't buy what the Democrats were selling, and Walz has clearly learned his lesson, because as he's launching his bid for a third term as Minnesota's governor he's going all in on his support for gun control.
Gov. Tim Walz vowed to respond to gun violence as he jumped into the race for a third term Tuesday, after a summer marked by both a political assassination and multiple mass shootings. The message punctuated Walz’s evolution on an issue that’s taken on new urgency among Democrats in Minnesota.
In a campaign launch video, Walz called on Minnesotans to come together and said he wants to “get serious about gun violence.”
The two-term governor has called for Minnesota lawmakers to vote on banning assault weapons, such as AR-15s, and said he plans to call a special session to address gun violence. Though he’s a lifelong hunter and gun owner, Walz’s positions on gun violence represent a considerable shift compared with his early political career.
Yeah, back when Tim Walz represented a rural congressional district he was singing a different tune. But as soon as he decided to run for a statewide office, Walz found it convenient to shift from a pro-2A politician to an ardent supporter of gun control, even though he claimed it was groups like the NRA who changed, not him.
Walz said in an op-ed published in the Minnesota Star Tribune that when he was growing up the NRA was “an advocate for sportsmen and women that held gun-safety classes.”
“Today, though, it’s the biggest single obstacle to passing the most basic measures to prevent gun violence in America — including common-sense solutions that the majority of NRA members support,” Walz said.
Walz was born in 1964. By the time he was a teenager, the NRA had ousted those board members and leaders who weren't willing to take a stand in support of our Second Amendment rights, while the group continued to advocate for sportsmen and women and helping to train millions of Americans how to safely and responsibly use firearms.
It was Walz who changed his mind about things like an "assault weapons" ban. He opposed Barack Obama's attempt to put a new "assault weapons" ban in place after Sandy Hook, but when he decided to run for governor in 2018 he suddenly decided that banning commonly owned semi-automatic firearms was just common sense.
In his current campaign, Walz is still calling himself a gun owner, but he's not wasting any time or money courting Second Amendment supporters.
A spokesperson for the governor said in a statement Tuesday that he’s a “lifelong hunter, gun owner and veteran.”
“But the destruction and heartbreak of school shootings have moved him to take common-sense action to save lives and keep students safe,” the spokesperson said.
The assassination of Walz’s close governing ally and friend Melissa Hortman and killing of two children at Annunciation Catholic Church and School spurred another push to curb gun violence.
Last week, Walz said he would call a special session and urged lawmakers to vote on banning assault-style firearms and high-capacity magazines.
“We have weapons of war and high-capacity magazines on the streets. They should not be there,” Walz said after meeting with legislative leaders. “We have folks that have firearms that should not have them, and we should be doing everything in our power to do something about that.”
Ironically, it will likely be rural Democrats who serve as the roadblock between Minnesotans and Walz's assault on their Second Amendment rights. There are a handful of DFL legislators who represent rural areas who've been cool to the idea of a gun ban, which is why Walz and anti-gun activists are putting an extraordinary amount of pressure on Republicans, to the point of accusing them of being okay with school children being murdered with an AR-15.
Sen. @KeriHeintzeman corners Sen. Latz — and forces him to admit they don’t have the votes.
— MN Gun Owners Caucus (@mnguncaucus) September 17, 2025
This whole “working group” is theater to blame Republicans and give their own Democrat members political cover. #mnleg pic.twitter.com/maHdpnIQPh
Whether Walz's change of heart on 2A issues is sincere or just a ploy to better fit in among the majority of Democrats in Minnesota is ultimately irrelevant. What he's calling for won't make Minnesota any safer, but it will make Minnesotans less free. Walz and his fellow Democrats should be working to fix the state's broken mental health system and its dysfunctional criminal justice system, but it's cheaper and easier to simply pretend that violence will stop if lawmakers get behind a gun ban. As a bonus, Walz can now depend on the gun control lobby kicking in plenty of cash in both direct and indirect contributions in exchange for making additional gun laws a centerpiece of his campaign.
Common sense? No. Dollars and cents? Absolutely.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member