After Everytown’s Demand, Walz Inches Closer to Special Session

Just hours after Everytown for Gun Safety issued a press release chastising Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for his delays in calling a special session of the legislature in response to the Annunciation shooting in late August, the anti-gun governor and Democrat-Farmer-Labor legislative leaders released a “proposal” for a potential special session… without formally scheduling one. 

Under the proposal, the special session will kick off next Monday, October 6 and run through Sunday, October 12. Walz and his cohorts have a laundry list of gun control bills they’re hoping to ram through the legislative process next week, including bans on “assault weapons”, “high-capacity” magazines, and binary triggers along with targeting unserialized firearms and expanding the state’s “red flag” law. 

The proposal also includes expanding funding for school safety, mental health treatment, and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s Behavorial Threat Assessment and Management Team. Those measures will probably find bipartisan support, though Republicans will be offering bills of their own on those issues. The gun control proposals, however, are likely to meet roadblocks in the deadlocked House of Representatives and may even struggle in the state Senate, where a few DFL senators who represent rural areas have been noncommittal about supporting gun and magazine bans. 

As for the specifics of the gun control measures, the proposal states that “[l]egislative committees will be responsible for negotiating specific policy detail sand appropriations budget bill language. If any legislative committee is unable to agree to final details, legislative leaders and the Governor will be responsible for approving final bill language in time to secure final passage of all abov ementioned bills during the Special Session.” 

The proposal adds that no amendments to the proposed bills will be accepted, though Walz and DFL leadership gave themselves an out by providing a caveat that if they agree to an amendment it can be included in the underlying legislation. 

Though Republican House Speaker Lisa DeMuth and Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson’s names were included at the bottom of the proposal, neither of them signed on to the document. In fact, Johnson blasted the proposal shortly after it was released.

“Democrats and Governor Walz are avoiding the regular committee process that invites public scrutiny and stakeholder input,” Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson said in a statement. “Only through the full legislative process can Minnesotans truly have a voice and a seat at the table, ensuring their will and not backroom deals, shapes our public policy.”

I have no doubt that some members of the public will have input; especially those belonging to groups like Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action, and other gun control groups. The fact that Walz and DFL lawmakers released their partisan proposal so soon after Everytown bashed the governor for not calling a special session shows how eager he is to please the gun control lobby, and I’m sure that anti-gun activists will have a hand in drafting those bills that restrict our right to keep and bear arms. 

We’ll be talking more about the potential special session with Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus chairman Bryan Strawser on today’s Bearing Arms’ Cam and Company, and I’d encourage you to tune in no matter where you live. Minnesota is ground zero in the fight over our right to keep and bear arms at the moment, and what happens at the state capitol next week will have a ripple effect across the country. 

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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