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Posted on 09/02/2025 8:19:33 AM PDT by DFG
Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday said he will call a special session for Minnesota lawmakers to vote on a package of gun control measures, although passage seems unlikely in a closely divided Legislature.
Walz, after welcoming Deerwood Elementary School students to their first day of school in Eagan, said Minnesota needs to take action following a mass shooting at Annunciation Church in Minneapolis that killed 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski and wounded 21 others last week.
“If Minnesota lets this moment slide and we determine that it’s okay for little ones to not be safe in a school environment or a church environment, then shame on us,” Walz said. “I’m going to call (lawmakers) back.”
The governor said he will release a gun control package this week that will include an assault weapons ban.
Walz said he plans to call a special session even if he gets zero commitments from Republicans to vote for his gun control measures.
Republicans — led by Speaker Lisa Demuth and who are strongly aligned with the gun rights movement — have 67 members in the House, while Democrats have 66 in their ranks following the June assassination of Democratic-Farmer-Labor caucus leader Melissa Hortman.
Walz and DFL lawmakers are hoping the shooting of a church filled with schoolchildren would pressure Republicans to accede to new laws. A special election to replace Hortman in safely blue District 34B is Sept. 16.
The special session will force Republicans to vote on gun control a little more than a year from a crucial midterm election when all 201 legislative seats will be on the ballot.
“When (Republicans) talk to the parents of these children and they hear the public speaking out, they get to make a decision. Are they going to stand in the way of having an honest debate? Now, we might not get it done in there, but the idea that you would not even come back and make a debate, I think, is untenable,” the governor said.
A majority of Minnesotans supported banning assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines in a MinnPost poll from 2022.
Democrats had full control of the Legislature in 2023 and 2024, but they failed to pass a statewide ban on assault weapons. They did pass a slate of other gun control measures, however. They instituted an extreme risk protection order, or “red flag,” law that allows family members or police to ask judges to take guns from people deemed a danger to themselves or others and passed universal background check requirements.
Although a special legislative session would force Republicans to take potentially difficult votes on gun regulation, it would also give them an opportunity to propose legislation of their own. Although only the governor can call the Legislature into special session, only lawmakers have the power to adjourn.
Republicans are already signaling they will make a special session about culture war issues given the Annunciation Church shooter’s apparent trans identity.
Rep. Drew Roach, R-Farmington, said in a press release that he will propose a bill repealing a ban on conversion therapy if lawmakers are called into a special session. The law, passed in 2023, prohibits mental health professionals from providing therapy that seeks to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, dismissed the idea of a special election in a statement last week.
“Republicans are committed to addressing the root causes of violence, supporting safe schools and increasing access to mental health resources. Calling for a special session without even consulting legislative leaders is not a serious way to begin. This is a partisan stunt from a governor who continues to engage in destructive political rhetoric,” Johnson said.
Walz cautioned Republicans to keep a special session focused on gun control.
“If we call a special session, and (Republicans) decide to deflect this to something else, my guess is that that Minnesotans are not going to be too happy about that,” Walz said.
The governor on Tuesday said he’s open to proposing more resources for mental health in his gun control package, but guns are the culprit in mass shootings.
“I am not going to allow anyone to try and make the case that the United States is unique in either mental health issues or other things,” Walz said. “The thing that makes America unique in terms of shootings is we just have more guns and the wrong types of guns that are on the streets.”
Walz didn’t provide a timeline for when he plans to call lawmakers back to session, but he will likely wait at least until the House returns to a tie after the Sept. 16 special election.
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100% chance ANYTHING proposed will be a direct violation of hte last 10 years of SCOTUS rulings.
And Democrats don’t care.
Further - also a 100% chance there will be zero attention given to the ACTUAL issues at the root of this violence. If anything, they will further erode law enforcement.
Assault weapons are already banned...........
Classify transgenders as mentally ill.
Ban guns from the mentally ill.
...Says the guy who can’t even handle a shotgun.
Ban Tran
Never let a crisis go to waste.
Of course, we could be pushing for tranny control, but that would be too logical.
Huh tampon Tim, stop promoting transgenderism.
Can the Pubbies add a provision making trans-genderism a mental disorder, disqualifying those individuals from buying guns?
The word he's looking for there is "excrete" ...
It's very clear that he wants to put children in even greater danger ... If he were serious about keeping children safe, he'd encourage preparation for self defense among school teachers and administrators. But he won't. He's just another evil communist tyrant.
Those that wish to totally subjugate American citizens (communists, nazis, other leftwing extremists in and outside of the DNC political power machine)... keep ph*qu*ing around with “gun control” even though they know it is totally unconstitutional
they NEED to do the impossible.. disarm Americans...if they are to succeed in enslaving us.
“Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms under our own possesion and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?”
– Patrick Henry
“Walz to call special session on gun control, propose assault weapons ban”. I’ve heard Ted Williams was pretty good at assaulting a baseball with a baseball bat...assault bat Tim?
Hey, Timmy, how about some “crazy Democrat maniac” control?
If tampons are outlawed only Walz will have tampons
I didn’t see the Cops smiling in the picture just the dorks.
Ban cross dressing sodomites instead, they’re quite violent.
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