In the aftermath of the Anunciation Catholic School shooting in Minneapolis, anti-gun Gov. Tim Walz figured he had a chance. While the urban centers of his state like gun control, the rural areas still have enough of a say in politics to prevent the worst transgressions against the Second Amendment.
But Walz figured he could call a special session of the legislature and make it happen anyway. He's still trying.
In fact, he's started talking yet again about that session.
For the third time in two weeks, the DFL Party organized a town hall meeting on gun violence to keep up pressure for a special session of the Minnesota Legislature. So far, there is no agreement between Democratic and Republican lawmakers and Governor Tim Walz.
“The public health crisis we have around firearms is simply unacceptable,” Walz said in his opening remarks at the town hall meeting in Stillwater. “And I’ve asked us simply to put on the floor of the House and Senate a vote on whether we should have limitations on these weapons of war that were designed, in the case of Annunciation, 116 bullets flew into that church into little bodies in 61 seconds.”
We asked the governor why he doesn’t call a special session without pre-agreement to at least force a debate over the debate. “Well, the debate wouldn’t happen,” he responded, saying, “The floor would then be controlled by Republicans who have made it clear they don’t want to have this discussion.”
Now, let's understand that these "town hall meetings" are nothing of the sort. They're heavily scripted efforts to push an anti-gun agenda on the people of Minnesota and to pretend they're talking to the common folk about it.
Yet that's not remotely what's happening.
What's really happening is that these so-called town halls are nothing but anti-gun rallies, at best, that are trying to keep the topic in the news and hopefully pressure some of the more moderate Republicans to cave on gun issues. He's trying to make gun control a thing in the state when there's just not the political will in the first place.
Walz is bound and determined to play any trick he can to take away people's means to defend themselves. The supposedly avid outdoorsman who claimed he could out-shoot Vice President J.D. Vance yet couldn't seem to load his shotgun wants to keep pretending he's a friend to the outdoorsmen and that he'll never take their guns away, but once the AR-15s and similar rifles vanish from law-abiding gun owners' safes, the "sniper rifles" will be next, and Walz knows it.
It won't happen overnight, but that's where it will go sooner or later.
But to get there, he's got to convince people to make guns an issue and enough of one that ordinarily pro-gun lawmakers--or, at least, anti-gun control legislators, because there's a difference--to switch sides on the issue. He didn't get the ban last session despite his fondest desires, so he's trying to make it happen now.
Folks in Minnesota need to hold the line before Walz sends them down the way of California.