Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Democratic-Farmer-Labor lawmakers continue their push for new gun control legislation in the wake of the Annunciation Catholic School shooting in Minneapolis, though without the support of rural DFLers and at least one Republican, the path forward remains unclear.
That hasn’t stopped the governor from promoting a “gun violence prevention package” that includes a ban on so-called assault weapons, new magazine capacity limits, a firearms insurance requirement and new spending on school safety and mental health resources.
Walz presented the slate of legislation at a Tuesday news conference at the state Capitol, where he was joined by DFL lawmakers, gun control proponents and a survivor of the Aug. 27 shooting in the Annunciation school church, which took the lives of two young children and injured more than 20 others.
“This is a time for bipartisan action around an issue that tore at the heart and continues to and we owe it to the Annunciation families not to have that just be another statistic,” said Walz, who unsuccessfully pushed for a special session on guns last fall. “That was the final straw. That was it. I pushed and pushed and pushed and we couldn’t even get legislators to have a hearing. Well, those days are over. Some of these folks in here are going to be testifying today.”
Annunciation student calls for action
Among those speaking in favor of gun legislation at the Capitol on Tuesday was Lydia Kaiser, an eighth grader at Annunciation who survived a gunshot to the head while trying to protect a younger student with her body.
Kaiser had to undergo surgery to remove bullet and bone fragments from her head and spent more than a month recovering in the hospital. Speaking at a morning news conference ahead of afternoon House hearings on DFL-backed gun control bills, she called on lawmakers to take action.
“All children have the right to live free from gun violence in schools, churches and in our communities,” she said. “Elected officials have a duty to protect us from guns. No one should have to go through what we went through.”
Kaiser and others affected by the shooting gathered at the Capitol to pressure lawmakers to change state gun policies. Outside the Capitol, they set up 60 empty school desks to represent 200 Minnesota children who died from gun violence since 2021.
Sixty empty school desks are displayed on the Capitol lawn representing symbolizing the more than 200 school children killed in gun violence in Minnesota since 2021. Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. The display is in honor of Harper Moyski Fletcher Merkel, both students Annunciation School who were kill last August. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Prospects for additional gun control measures
Prospects for gun control measures remain dim in the closely divided Minnesota Legislature, where bills need bipartisan support to pass.
There are 67 Democratic-Farmer-Labor and 67 Republican representatives in the House. And while the Democrats have a one-seat majority in the Senate, some members from rural districts have been hesitant to back new gun laws in the past.
After last summer’s violence, Walz, DFL and Republican lawmakers spent more than a month negotiating terms for a special session on guns. Walz at one point said there’d be a special session on guns “one way or another,” but by October, it was apparent that closed-door pre-session negotiations were not delivering any results.
Walz then held town hall meetings promoting gun control policies in Republican legislative districts and in December issued executive orders aimed at educating the public on existing state gun policies and laying the groundwork for future gun control legislation by creating a gun violence prevention research council.
Neither made any immediate changes to state gun control policy and came after months of frustration for the governor. Republicans have remained opposed to new restrictions on guns and have backed funding boosts for school security and mental health services.
Those proposals are part of the governor’s overall gun violence prevention package. Walz said he believed he might get Republican support on a bill restricting so-called ghost guns — privately made firearms without serial numbers that can be difficult to trace to a crime.
But past the mental health measures and theoretical support for a ghost gun ban, there’s little indication of bipartisan appetite for restrictions on assault weapons.
Local gun control laws, binary triggers
Another change DFLers are hoping for is an end to a 1985 state law banning local gun control laws, something Twin Cities metro mayors called for in the fall after the Annunciation school shooting. Former St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey were among several mayors who gathered at the Capitol in September, calling for the change. However, like other gun-control-related policies, it does not appear to have the support needed to pass.
Walz also is calling for the Legislature to re-pass a ban on binary triggers, modifications for semiautomatic rifles that fire a shot when the trigger is pulled and again while released, greatly boosting the weapon’s rate of fire.
Minnesota lawmakers passed a ban in 2024, but Ramsey County Judge Leonardo Castro shot it down last August, as it became law as part of a 1,400-page bill passed at the last minute of the 2024 session, violating a rule limiting bills to a single overall subject.
That was just one of several recent successful legal challenges to state gun laws by the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, a prominent state gun rights group.
In another August ruling, the Minnesota Supreme Court said a decades-old law banning certain guns without serial numbers didn’t apply to homemade “ghost guns” as long as federal law doesn’t require a serial number.
And, earlier this year, Minnesota’s minimum age to obtain a permit to carry a firearm dropped from 21 to 18 after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the state’s appeal in a case challenging the minimum age.
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