Deep Dive: Debating the Impact of Gun Violence in Minnesota (3 perspectives)

Minnesota legislators participate in a group sing-along with Annunciation parents and others prior to a legislative hearing about gun violence prevention bills. (photo by Sarah Whiting)

According to The Trace, 29 states require no permit to carry a concealed handgun; almost all of those states tend to vote Republican. The remaining states, almost all Democrat-voting, require permits. Just 13 states require a permit before you buy a gun; all but two of them voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. And this year, Democratic lawmakers are preparing to pass gun reform bills in Virginia, while Republicans in Florida are attempting to roll back the few gun laws the state passed after the 2018 Parkland school shooting.

In short, like reproductive rights, gun laws are typically a strongly partisan issue. Unlike reproductive rights, however, the Republican party tends to be against controlling individual rights.

As The Trace reports, Bridging the Divide on Firearm Policy is working to narrow that partisan gap. The idea is to bring together people who own guns and people who don’t, to lead to mutually acceptable gun reform ideas. The effort has so far brought together 23 leaders in the fields of gun violence prevention and gun rights to develop state-level gun laws in the past year. The effort focuses on drafting model legislation, with input from gun rights leaders.

Participants have said that centering “harm reduction” and reforms, rather strictly limiting or banning guns themselves, has made the effort successful. Eight state-level firearm policies — aimed at preventing shootings and saving lives, while protecting the rights of gun owners —were approved with broad consensus from its participants, then combined in a 67-page package written as model legislation.

The eight proposals they agreed on were:

• Background checks
• Child firearm access prevention and safe storage
• Community violence intervention
• Dealer regulation and gun trafficking
• Extreme risk protection orders (red flag laws)
• Firearm injury prevention education
• Firearm suicide prevention
• Prohibiting factors for firearm purchase and possession

Community members held hearts carrying the names of Minnesota children killed by gun violence. (photo by Sarah Whiting)

The idea of this national coalition work is to combine these laws into a compromise package that supports stronger state background checks, and a prohibition against selling to people who have been convicted of violent misdemeanors, while also codifying faster state background checks, an app for individual gun sellers to run peer-to-peer background checks, and the repeal of state-level silencer and short-barreled rifle restrictions.

Gun reform proponents get stronger state oversight of gun dealers who sell a high share of guns that eventually end up at crime scenes, while gun rights advocates get state reductions in liability protections for gun dealers from the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. The proposed bills also have enhanced due process protections, procedures for returning firearms to the gun owner once an order expires, as well as penalties for people who have been found to have used an order for vindictive purposes and mental health support for those subject to an order.

Minnesota has several of these proposals in play, or that have passed in some form. In recent years, with a Democratic-led legislature, steps were taken to reduce firearm harm, including expanded background checks and a binary trigger ban. Red flag laws, which temporarily remove guns from people who have been deemed a threat to themselves or others, made it in the package; Minnesota passed this legislation in 2023.

The package excludes hot-button proposals like bans on assault weapons or high-capacity magazines, which was discussed recently among Minnesota legislators — yet did not move through committee, dividing on partisan lines.

Minnesota Deadlock on Assault Weapons and Magazine Ban Bills

reporting by Cirien Saadeh

The Minnesota House Public Safety Committee heard hours of emotional testimony in early March as lawmakers debated two gun control proposals in the wake of the August 27 shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School. The hearing concluded with both bills failing to advance after tied committee votes. Co-Chair Kelly Moller opened by acknowledging the victims of recent gun violence in Minnesota. Among those remembered were Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, Gregory Sweeten, Harper Moyski, Fletcher Merkel, Renee Good, and Alex Pretti.

The committee took up two bills together: House File 3433, authored by Rep. Emma Greenman (DFL–Minneapolis), which would ban the sale and possession of certain semi-automatic military-style assault weapons, and House File 3402, authored by Rep. Brad Tabke (DFL–Shakopee), which would prohibit high-capacity magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds.

Greenman said her bill targets weapons designed for rapid, high-casualty attacks. “These assault weapons were designed for the military to effectively kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible,” she said, noting that 69 percent of Minnesotans support an assault weapons ban, according to polling.

The legislation would prohibit future sales of certain rifles with detachable magazines and military-style features. Current owners could keep them if they completed a certification process through the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

Tabke’s companion proposal would limit the size of ammunition magazines. He said the measure aims to reduce the number of victims during mass shootings.

Much of the hearing focused on the Annunciation shooting, when a gunman opened fire during a school mass, killing two children and injuring more than a dozen others. Parents, teachers and medical professionals described the lasting impact of the attack. Jackie Flavin, the mother of 10-year-old victim Harper Moyski, told lawmakers that families in the community still struggle to sleep months after the tragedy. She recounted her daughter’s final moments. “Harper yelled ‘get down’ to her little buddy, and then she was fatally shot in the head and the neck,” Flavin said She said the severity of injuries prevented the family from holding or seeing Harper’s body.

Harry Kaiser, a gym teacher at Annunciation and the father of an injured student, described the chaos inside the church as gunfire erupted. His daughter Lydia was wounded. He said limiting magazine capacity could give victims time to escape during a shooter’s reload. “At the very least, we must slow down the next school shooter,” Kaiser said.

Brittany Haeg, Annunciation parent, testified about the ongoing physical and mental traumas of her son, who was six when Annunciation students were hit by 116 shots fired on them during a school mass (photo by Sarah Whiting)

Brittany Haeg testified about her six-year-old son David, the youngest survivor of the shooting. David suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the head, abdomen and limbs. She described a grueling recovery that has included dozens of medical appointments and therapies. “He still carries pieces of a weapon inside of him,” Haeg said, referring to bullet fragments embedded in his body. “The impact of these weapons does not end when the ambulance leaves.”

This year alone, she said, her son has had at least 18 therapy sessions, two sleep therapy sessions, two medication management visits, two neurology appointments, two physical therapy appointments, an appointment for anxiety treatment, an appointment to address elevated lead levels, and much more. She said her family is navigating a medical path with no clear end point, and asked lawmakers to move beyond talking points and consider the lived experiences of victims.

Emergency physician Dr. Tim Kummer of Hennepin Healthcare, who responded to the scene, told lawmakers that more than 100 rounds were fired during the attack. “The type of weapon directly impacts the severity of these tragedies,” Kummer said. “A tragedy that could have been one or two victims became a tragedy of more than 20 people shot.” He said he knows colleagues in other countries who have never treated a gunshot wound. “This level of violence is not normal.”

Opposing Arguments

Opponents of the bills argued that the proposals would not prevent violence and would infringe on constitutional rights.

• Robert Doar, president of the Minnesota Gun Owners Law Center, said the targeted firearms are commonly owned and protected under the Second Amendment. “Ordinary people should not be criminalized for owning ordinary things,” Doar said, adding that bans simply push ownership underground, create illicit markets, and empower people already willing to break the law.
• National Rifle Association lobbyist Brian Gosch said “hundreds of thousands” of large-capacity magazines already exist in Minnesota.
• Moriah Day, of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said the bill would make it illegal to buy or own what she describes as the most popular firearms in the United States, along with standard-capacity magazines.
• Anna Leamy, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, Director of Government Relations and Advocacy, said targeting a single type of firearm would not prevent attackers from using other weapons, and “our communities deserve better than the partisan symbolic measures offered here today.”
• Amy Swearer, Senior Legal Fellow at Advancing American Freedom, said, “The problem at Annunciation was not that this individual had a pistol grip or a barrel shroud. It is that this person… had a firearm in the first place.” She said many perpetrators should have been incarcerated prior to the shootings. “These individuals should have been in jail.”
• Rep. Paul Novotny (R-Elk River) said the deterrent for attackers is an armed individual capable of intervening. “The one thing they fear… is the arrival of the good guy with the gun.” In response to Tabke’s bill, he rejected restricting the purchase of large-capacity magazines within Minnesota because they can simply be obtained in Wisconsin.
• Rep. Walter Hudson (R–Albertville) cited recent criminal cases involving repeat offenders with illegal guns and said earlier Democratic gun laws did not prevent the Annunciation shooting. “The best argument against these bills is any given weekend in Chicago.”
• Rep. Bidal Duran (R–Bemidji), a combat veteran, challenged the description of AR-style rifles as weapons of war. “I’m the only one in this room that has gone to combat… and I didn’t carry one of these,” Duran said. He described the discussion as “theatrical” and accused proponents of fear-based messaging.

Perhaps in response to the depiction of the conversation as theatrical, Moller reiterated that the reality is, at Annunciation, within two minutes, 116 bullets killed two children and injured approximately 30 children and adults who were praying in a church.

In response to a question from Duran, Greenman said, “When we talk about the top 10 mass shootings, nine of them have been with assault weapons.” She replied to Hudson’s comments by indicating that the previous gun legislation had saved lives, even if it is not expected to prevent all gun homicides.

Tabke said, “We know that there will be more mass shootings in the state of Minnesota. The question is whether we will take steps that might reduce the harm when they happen.” He said 14 states, plus Washington, D.C., currently have magazine limits. “This is not unconstitutional, it’s not unprecedented.”

Greenman’s bill, HF 3433, failed to advance after a 10-10 roll-call vote. Tabke’s magazine-capacity bill met the same fate later in the hearing, also ending in a 10-10 tie.

(photo by Sarah Whiting)

Proposal for Minnesota Office of Gun Violence Prevention

reporting by Cirien Saadeh

House File 3668, authored by Rep. Jeff Bierman (DFL-Apple Valley), would establish a state Office of Gun Violence Prevention. The proposed office would coordinate research, data collection, and prevention strategies across state agencies and community partners. “Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and adolescents in the United States,” he told the committee. “This has been the case for five years now.”

He compared the issue to past threats lawmakers addressed through coordinated public health responses, including infectious diseases, childhood cancer, smoking, and motor vehicle crashes. “They followed the research. They trusted the data. They acted,” Bierman said. “If this were any other leading cause of death, we would respond with urgency.”

The proposed office would bring together researchers, medical professionals, educators, law enforcement and community leaders to better study and prevent gun violence, he said. “We cannot solve what we refuse to study.”

Bierman cited national statistics, noting that 58,220 U.S. service members were killed during the Vietnam War over two decades, while more than 49,000 Americans died from gun violence in 2024 alone. Between 2012 and 2021, more than 200,000 children suffered gunshot wounds in the United States, he said, with more than 29,000 treated in emergency rooms in 2021.

“These numbers can overwhelm us,” Bierman said. “But we cannot allow ourselves to become numb.” Supporters of the bill, including physicians and researchers, told lawmakers that firearm deaths should be addressed using the same evidence-based framework used for other public health challenges.

Dr. Lisa Mattson, president of the Minnesota Medical Association, said more than 500 Minnesotans die each year from firearm injuries, a number that has risen in recent years. Firearm deaths in Minnesota surpass cancer and accidental deaths combined among children, she said, adding: “Guns are also the number one cause of death by suicide, especially in our adolescent population.”

Mattson said physicians regularly treat both the physical injuries and psychological trauma caused by gun violence. She argued that a dedicated office could improve coordination between policymakers and the medical community. “Minnesota has successfully reduced deaths from motor vehicle crashes, tobacco use and opioid overdoses by applying a framework grounded in evidence, data, prevention and collaboration,” she said. “The same model can be applied to firearm injury and death.”

Maggiy Emery, executive director of the advocacy group Protect Minnesota, said the state’s gun violence trends have diverged from national patterns in recent years. “Unlike most of the rest of the country, where shootings and homicides have started to dramatically decline, Minnesota’s levels of gun injury and death remain elevated,” Emery said.

Emery cited data indicating that Minnesota’s gun death rate rose 35 percent between 2014 and 2023, with more than 20 percent of that increase occurring in the past six years and noted that the state lacks centralized data and coordinated prevention strategies. “In 2024, deaths from gun violence around the rest of the country fell by 5 percent, but here in Minnesota, they rose by 6 percent,” she said.

“We don’t have much research to help us understand why Minnesota is an outlier here,” she said. “This office would bring data, research and strategy together under one roof. We already know that other public health challenges, from motor vehicle safety to infectious diseases, benefit enormously from this kind of coordinated approach. It’s time for leadership grounded in evidence and not guesswork.”

Kacie Sharp, a parent at Annunciation Catholic School, described the August shooting that shook her community. “My son was forced to lie under a church pew with his hands over his head as 116 bullets were fired in just two minutes,” Sharp said. Five rows behind him, she said, his best friend Fletcher was fatally shot. “That moment is now part of my son’s story and our family’s story,” she said. “He was inches from death and now has to grow up without his best friend. In his third-grade classroom, ten little boys are not just learning math. They’re learning how to cope with grief, fear, and trauma.”

She added: “We may not all agree on the best path forward, but that is exactly why we need an Office of Gun Violence Prevention.”

Dr. Patricia Jewett, connected with the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, spoke in her capacity as a researcher to say there are ongoing studies on the impact of firearm safe storage, needs of survivors of gun violence, and how gun trauma effects children and families. In Minneapolis, she works with community violence interrupters who actively intervene to prevent shootings. In rural Minnesota communities, she convenes firearm owners, non-owners, and people with different political views, to identify firearm safety measures acceptable across perspectives. She created a pilot project with Protect Minnesota to identify locations where individuals can store firearms temporarily outside the home as a suicide prevention measure. “So far these are pilots, but this work is needed in all of Minnesota.”

Jewett said communities across the state want to participate in solutions, but research is significantly underfunded. She said a state Office of Gun Violence Prevention could provide funding for research, coordinate projects across the state, and ensure findings benefit all Minnesota communities.

Elizabeth Elfstrand, of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said: “Homicide and suicide are the number one cause of maternal death in our country. For too many women, the greatest threat to their survival during and after pregnancy is not a medical complication. It’s a bullet.”

She said she would like to see an office to coordinate programs addressing guns and domestic violence, suicide prevention, maternal health initiatives, and community safety programs. community safety programs. “Having a centralized Office of Gun Violence Prevention would help align these programs so that they’re working together, not separately.”

Dr. Rachel Weigert, a pediatric emergency physician at Children’s Minnesota, said she was working in the emergency department when victims from the Annunciation shooting were brought in. “The Annunciation shooting was the largest singular trauma incident we have responded to in recent history,” Weigert said. “As an adult, I truly feel that we have failed our children,” Weigert said.

Opposing Arguments

• Anna Leamy, director of government relations for the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, argued the bill would create a taxpayer-funded bureaucracy that could promote gun control policies. “Minnesota does not need another layer of government bureaucracy focused on reframing and restricting a constitutional right,” Leamy said. “If violence is the concern, the solution lies in enforcement, prosecution, and accountability.” She rejected the public health framework used by supporters, saying it treats lawful firearm ownership “as a societal pathology.” Instead, she urged lawmakers to focus on enforcing existing laws, prosecuting violent offenders, and expanding mental health services.
• Rep. Danny Nadeau (GOP-Champlin) offered an amendment to change the location of the proposed Office of Gun Violence Prevention to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, rather than the Minnesota Department of Health, indicating that the broader public safety ecosystem is better positioned to integrate research and policy work.
• Rep. Jeff Backer (R–Fergus Falls) questioned whether creating a new office would be effective, noting that Minnesota already spends tens of millions of dollars annually on violence prevention programs and crime victim services, and an office would not have sufficient authority or effectiveness to produce outcomes. He suggested investments in school security might have a more direct impact.

Bierman responded that school safety and broader prevention efforts should not be treated as competing priorities. “It’s not an either-or,” he suggested. “It’s a yes-and.” He said research on gun violence has been historically underfunded, with existing data focused mostly on fatalities. There has been less research on long-term physical, mental, and emotional impacts on survivors. “I know this issue often becomes partisan the moment it is raised, but studying a leading cause of death should not be partisan,” he said, indicating the need is to a central coordinating entity.

Other lawmakers asked about the bill’s cost. Bierman said he anticipates a small office with roughly three staff members — a director, epidemiologist and associate director — primarily focused on data analysis and coordination. He indicated it would be similar to the Office of Opioid Epidemic Response Advisory Council, which has coordinated data and program evaluation to improve state response efforts.

Rep. Xp Lee (DFL—Brooklyn Park) — who was elected to take the place of Rep. Melissa Hortman, who was killed by a political assassination at her home — emphasized that the proposal targets violence rather than gun ownership.

“All bills reflect values,” Bierman said. “This bill reflects the value of the importance of our youngest citizens.”

The committee did not vote on the measure. Instead, House File 3668 was laid over for possible inclusion in a future omnibus bill as lawmakers continue negotiations.

Action Steps

• Survivors, parents, and community members from the Annunciation Catholic School shooting
• Minnesota lawmakers reflecting on the legacy of Speaker Melissa Hortman
• Faith leaders including Pastor Ingrid Rasmussen
• Veteran suicide and domestic violence prevention advocates
• Angela Ferrell-Zabala, Executive Director of Moms Demand Action
• Advocates with Moms Demand Action, Students Demand Action, Protect Minnesota 

• Educators with Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence
• Students advocates with Students Demand Action
• Protect Minnesota
• Community partners

• Senate Judiciary Committee at 8:30am on Friday, March 13
  • SF 3655, legalization to prohibit assault weapons and high capacity magazines
  • SF 3661 legalization to prohibit the sale and possession of ghost guns
  • SF 0513, legislation to create a Department of Health office of gun violence prevention
  • SF 3549, legislation to repeal the state preemption law which prevents localities from enacting gun safety regulations
• House Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, March 10
  • HF 3350, legislation to permanently prohibit convicted domestic abusers from purchasing or possessing firearms 

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