Minnesota Republicans Want Mental Health Resources, Not Gun Control

As Minnesota lawmakers gather in a special session following the Annunciation Catholic School shooting, all to potentially pass gun control, there’s likely to be a lot of news generated. We’ve already seen some absolutely ridiculous proposals, and we’re only getting started with the burning stupid.

But there’s at least some sanity in the Gopher State.

It seems at least some of the Republicans in the legislature want resources that would actually help prevent future tragedies without punishing people who did nothing wrong.

They want mental health resources.

Minnesota Republicans want to make mental health the focus of the state’s response to high-profile violent incidents in recent months, setting up a conflict with Democrats who say firearms restrictions must be part of the solution.

This comes in response to Gov. Tim Walz vowing to call lawmakers back to the Capitol after the shooting deaths of Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband in their home in June and two schoolchildren at a Minneapolis Catholic church and school in August.

“We could spend weeks upon weeks just on the mental health portion, what can we do to hopefully get people the help so they aren’t, what I would refer to as disturbed, so they don’t shoot through windows at children,” said Sen. Rich Draheim, R-Madison Lake, during an informal Senate working group hearing Wednesday to discuss gun violence prevention measures.

The conflicting approaches from the two parties follow well-worn paths in the long debate over legislative solutions to mass shootings, and it’s not clear that Walz will be able to bring the two sides together as he makes a gun control pitch central to his latest re-election effort. With the governor and all 201 legislators on the ballot next year, the state’s response is likely to be fodder for both parties’ campaign messages.

Here’s the thing that we need to consider here.

The killer in Minneapolis had a long history of mental health issues. In his manifesto, he claims he was suicidal for quite some time. This attack was a manifestation of that cry for help gone to a dark and bizarre place.

He wasn’t getting the help he truly needed, so he decided to target a gun-free zone–his words, mind you–and kill innocent children just trying to worship God.

It sounds to me like the issue wasn’t access to a particular type of gun, since he could have used just about anything and still killed those two young children and wounded just as many more, since there was no one there to stop him. The issue is that this is one of many people who are so broken inside that they think lashing out and killing people who did them no harm at all is a viable approach to dealing with it.

Mental health efforts are precisely where attention needs to be focused.

Unfortunately, we know that the anti-gun Democrats will push for gun control, and there are a couple of Republicans who are just too squishy on the issue to be trusted to oppose it.

If you’re in Minnesota, call your legislators and make your feelings known before it’s too late.

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