Soon after the shooting at Annunciation Church in Minneapolis in late August, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced his intention to call lawmakers back to the statehouse for a special session to deal with gun control and public safety. For several weeks the governor reiterated his plans on an almost daily basis, but never took the step of actually scheduling a special session.
Now, though, Walz has stopped talking about a special session altogether, saying it would be pointless to have one if the votes aren't there to ban so-called assault weapons and large capacity magazines.
Republican leaders say they haven't seen any legislation yet pertaining to a ban on assault rifles. Senator Andrew Lang of Olivia says their agenda instead concentrates on making schools safer and offering more mental health services.
Lang says with every day that passes, the chance of a special session shrinks. He thinks Governor Walz' call to hold one caught some DFL leaders by surprise, and may have been a way to distract from some of the other problems in the administration, like the fraud investigations.
Under Minnesota law, it's not up to Walz to determine the scope of any special session anyway. He's the only person who can schedule one, but after that it's up to the legislature to decide what bills to take up. Republicans may not be willing to vote for gun and magazine bans, but they do have a number of legislative items that could improve student safety they're ready to pass, and Republican Kendall Qualls, who's running to become the GOP's pick for governor next year, says Walz is turning his back on school safety because he can't get his way on gun control.
If the session isn’t exclusively about gun control — something that wouldn’t have stopped the attack at Annunciation — then, in his view, it isn’t worth having.
That kind of political rigidity doesn’t reflect leadership. It reflects partisan gamesmanship at its worst.
Minnesotans deserve a governor who will act with urgency and principle, not one who lets ideology dictate whether he protects our children. The sophomoric politics we’re witnessing from Walz are beneath the stature of his office.
The truth is, Minnesota does need a special session — not to grandstand on gun control but to enact real, practical measures that keep children safe from those intent on doing harm.
Unfortunately, if a proposal doesn’t fit his political narrative, apparently Walz simply isn’t interested. He’s dismissed alternative plans that don’t involve gun control as “a waste of money and a waste of time.”
Meanwhile, Republicans in the Legislature are working diligently on policies that strengthen school safety, improve public safety, and address mental health — issues that deserve bipartisan attention. Let’s be clear: Those efforts are not a waste of time. They are precisely what Minnesotans expect from their elected leaders.
Qualls goes on to point out that as recently as 2023, parochial and private schools repeatedly asked Democrat lawmakers and the governor to pass bills that would provide money to enhance private school security, but despite having complete control of state government and a budget surplus of almost $20 billion, not a single dime was dedicated to bolstering student safety on private school campuses.
In his op-ed, Qualls ripped Walz for wanting to "narrow the conversation to a single, divisive issue: gun control," instead of moving forward where common ground can be found. I'm glad to see at least one Republican is calling out the governor for his political theater surrounding a special session and his insistence that, without assurances that gun and magazine ban can reach his desk, a special session is a waste of time. This should be the message from GOP lawmakers every day that Walz sits on his hands and blames Republicans for inaction. Walz is the only one with the authority to schedule a special session, and he's letting his anti-gun extremism stand in the way of lawmakers adopting substantive measures to improve student safety; measures that should have broad and bipartisan support.
