Gov. Tim Walz wants gun control. He also apparently wants us to realize how much of a bullet we dodged last year when he and Kamala Harris went down in defeat.
Now, in the wake of Minneapolis, Walz wants a special session, and he’s convinced he can get the gun control he wants because he claims it’s really popular.
But is it?
One media outlet opted to look at past polling on the topic.
Minnesota Democrats and Republicans are preparing to possibly return to St. Paul early to debate gun control and school safety following the shooting at Annunciation Church that left two children dead and 21 others injured.
Many Democrats are calling for a ban on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, like those used by the shooter at Annunciation and in countless other mass shootings. These firearms, dubbed “assault weapons” for their military-style design and lethality, were banned federally from 1994 to 2004, but states have since been left to their own devices to figure out their own legislation on assault weapons.
Republican lawmakers have largely rejected the focus on guns, instead proposing increased funding for school security and mental health treatment.
Gov. Tim Walz, in announcing his intention to call a special session, said the public is with Democrats on gun control and Republicans risked public backlash by voting against it.
“If you ask the public about an assault weapon ban, it polls at about 80%. So if you want to go to the next election against the public here when we had an opportunity to do something about this, then I leave that to you,” Walz said.
However, they go on to note that it polls at 80 percent among Democrats. That’s a far cry from polling at 80 percent in total.
Instead, a 2022 poll found that 54 percent of Minnesotans favor an assault weapon ban, which is a significantly lower number. Further, at least some of those who like that law don’t like anything else anti-gun lawmakers stand for, so it wouldn’t benefit them in any way, shape, or form politically.
The thing is, looking at a poll from three years ago isn’t particularly helpful or relevant.
Obviously, things change in the wake of something like what happened in Minneapolis. The numbers are going to be different, with a likely higher percentage right now, but a percentage that will drop as time passes
Yet there’s another thing that’s relevant here that is typically missed when we see discussions of polling on the popularity of gun control. Namely, that we don’t leave our rights up to a popularity vote.
The Second Amendment was created and ratified explicitly to prevent that.
Our rights aren’t up for election. They are ours by virtue of being human. They cannot be rightly taken away, no matter how popular doing so might be in a given situation.
Further, while the Supreme Court has said there can be some limits, an assault weapon ban is likely not one of them. That means any attempt to do so will be immediately challenged and likely thrown out in due course.
In the meantime, though, how many people will be denied their rights because some politicians thought “popular” meant “right” or “just?”
Editor’s Note: Radical anti-gun Democrats will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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