Minnesota has escaped a ban on so-called assault weapons--the most popular model of firearm in the country--and standard capacity magazines. It was, in part, thanks to the work of pro-gun lawmakers in the House.
And one member of House leadership is likely to have some awkward family dinners because of it.
While generations often have some degree of political friction, much of that isn't public. After all, most people aren't really public personalities, so no one cares if your Aunt Edith and her daughter disagree about whether tariffs are a good thing or not.
When you're the speaker of the Minnesota House, and your daughter disagrees with you about a controversial subject like guns, though, and does it publicly, well...
Hundreds crammed into the Minnesota Capitol on Saturday, rallying to support DFL lawmakers demanding a vote on gun reform after wrapping up a days-long sit-in protest in the state House chambers.
The bill, which already passed in the Senate, would ban semiautomatic rifles and high-capacity magazines. DFL lawmakers claim GOP House Speaker Lisa Demuth is holding up the vote. She insists House lawmakers voted in committee, where it stalled.
That has created a public debate between Lisa Demuth and her daughter, Shelisa Demuth, who has criticized her mom's actions on social media.
"This is an issue that I care deeply about," Shelisa Demuth said. "I am here to observe. Of course, I have personal stake in this being a survivor, being a parent and also being the daughter of Lisa Demuth, our current House speaker."
Shelisa Demuth has drawn attention to the issue through her social media, recently posting on Threads, "Imagine being the first House Speaker in state history who is also the mother of two school shooting victims and conveniently deferring a gun control bill to the next legislative session."
Shelisa Demuth was 15 years old in 2003, a 10th grader at Rocori High School, when gun violence shattered her innocence.
"I distinctly remember the code red alert that came over the loudspeaker, the flush look that came over my biology teacher's face, the way that we just dropped all of our belongings and sheltered," Shelisa Demuth said. "We were in the dark for hours until turning on the television and seeing our school's aerial shot... That is how we learned what was going on."
Now, I'm sure that was terrifying, to say the least, but the fact that Shelisa attended a school where there was a shooting--it wasn't a mass shooting, even by Gun Violence Archive standards, for the record--doesn't change the facts of the matter when it comes to guns, gun rights, and gun control.
For example, that particular incident didn't involve a modern sporting rifle. It involved a .22 handgun. The killer only fired a few shots, so even a magazine restriction wouldn't have changed anything about that incident. It was retaliation for bullying, versus a blanket, "I want to kill everyone" kind of thing, which is still an incredibly awful tragedy, but not the same as something like Sandy Hook or Columbine.
So why should the speaker trip over herself to pass a bill that wouldn't have prevented that shooting, simply because her kids were in the building during that shooting?
Look, there are people who have been touched by so-called gun violence a lot more deeply than Speaker Demuth. Both Ryan Petty and I have been, among so many others. Proximity to violence doesn't suddenly change the nature of violence.
I'm sincerely sorry that Shelisa Demuth went through that, because it shouldn't have happened, but her mother's refusal to bend the knee to Tim Walz and his anti-gun allies, particularly on a measure that won't stop school shootings but will make self-defense more difficult for millions of people in Minnesota, was the right move.
