With sine die approaching in less than a month, anti-gunners in the Minnesota legislature are putting their gun ban efforts into overdrive.
On Wednesday, the Senate Finance committee approved a massive gun control bill that includes the ban on so-called assault weapons and large capacity magazines being pushed by Gov. Tim Walz, along with increased funding for the state's "red flag" law and bans on both privately manufactured firearms and binary triggers.
The omnibus gun control bill is now on the Senate floor and eligible for a vote at any time, though whether there's enough support to pass it is still an open question.
Democrats have a slim one-vote majority in the Senate with no guarantee all Democrats will vote for gun bills. It will be even tougher in the House, where Republicans and Democrats share power.
After the governor’s speech on Tuesday, Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth said Republicans aren’t to be blamed for not passing gun bills. “(Many) gun bills when Democrats had full control of state government didn’t have the votes within their own caucuses, Senate, and House.”
DFL House Leader Zack Stephenson says Democrats did pass several gun bills when they had control of the House and Senate. “We did pass gun bills in ‘23 and ‘24, and those laws are saving lives across Minnesota every day,” he said, mentioning extreme risk protection orders, also called “red flag” laws, that he says continue to save lives across Minnesota.
As an aside, Stephenson has no way of knowing if the state's "red flag" law is saving lives, because the state publishes next to no data on ERPOs. The only information available are the number of petitions filed and the number of petitions granted/denied. That limited amount of information shows the vast majority of ERPO petitions are approved (26 out of 27 petitions filed in March, for instance), but that could just as easily be evidence that petitions are being rubber-stamped by judges regardless of evidence of "dangerousness."
The "red flag" law doesn't appear to be having an impact on the state's suicide rate. The most recent data stops in 2024, which is when the ERPO law went into effect. According to the Minnesota Department of Health, the state's suicide rate was statistically unchanged from 2023, and in terms of raw numbers there was one additional suicide reported in 2024 compared to the prior year.
Anyway, back to the omnibus gun control bill that's now pending in the Senate, where the DFL has a one-vote majority. At the moment there are two DFL state senators who have not committed to voting for a gun and magazine ban. DFL leadership has packaged the bans with more funding for mental health and school security in order to offer those senators some political cover, but gun owners in Sen. Grant Hauschild's and Sen. Rob Kupec's districts need to flood their offices with phone calls and emails in opposition to the omnibus gun ban bill.
Republicans and Democrats are tied in the Minnesota House, so even if the bill does make it through the Senate, anti-gunners would need at least one Republican to vote in favor of the package. So far House Republicans have been unified in opposition to Walz's gun ban plans, but defeating the bill in the Senate should be the top priority for Minnesota gun owners at the moment.
Editor’s Note: Gun grabbers like Tim Walz will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
Help us continue to report on and expose the Democrats’ gun control policies and schemes. Join Bearing Arms VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member