Open Letter: Time for More Stringent Gun Laws
To: Gov. Tim Walz
130 State Capitol
75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St. Paul, Minnesota 55155
Dear Gov. Walz:
Two children dead, many more seriously injured, while praying at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis. A person with an assault-style rifle firing 116 rounds within four minutes into a church.
Words fail. The usual thoughts and prayers sent. Action beyond sentiment is called for, and you have called for a special session of the Legislature to consider banning assault weapons. This all sounds so savagely familiar.
So familiar because in 2013 we wrote a column entitled “Armed Monsters in Minnesota,” which detailed the arrest of a person (we do not name monsters who crave attention) by an alert sheriff because the sheriff recognized the person. The individual in question had murdered his mother 18 years before but was now out walking around carrying a gun. And not just one gun. As it turned out, he owned a veritable arsenal. In the intervening 12 years, there have been statutory improvements; permits are now required, and a background check is more complete. A state “red flag” law took effect this year, but it is still too easy to legally acquire assault weapons with unlimited magazine capacity (as the Annunciation murderer did).
Reload.
So far this year, the attack on Annunciation Catholic School was the 44th school shooting in the U.S., but we all know that with school resuming there will be more. Clearly, many of these monsters are mentally ill and should not have access to firearms, and hopefully (!) our new red flag law will encourage people who should know to come forward and alert authorities so they can deprive dangerous people of deadly weapons. When concerned citizens come forward, they should be treated as heroes.
All too often the argument is raised that the real issue is mental health and not firearms. Thus, there will be those in and out of the Legislature who argue that more attention should be paid to supporting mental health treatment programs. That may or may not be a good idea, but it’s beside the point.
Let’s apply some Minnesota common sense to that argument. Mental health issues are difficult to define, but they exist in all populations regardless of definition.
There is no reason to believe that people who live in the United States are much more likely to suffer mental health problems than people who live in the other 35 industrialized countries. And if that’s the case, mass shootings should be as common in the other 35 industrialized countries as they are in the United States. We all know where this is going. According to a study by professor Jason Silva for the Rockefeller Institute of Government, in China and Japan, for example, between 2000 and 2022, there were three public mass shootings in China and none in Japan. Both countries have extremely strict gun control measures and do not allow individual ownership of assault weapons. The United States makes up 33 percent of the combined population of the 36 industrialized countries, but it accounts for 76 percent of all public mass shooting incidents. It’s the guns, stupid.
Reload.
Gov. Walz has been a gun owner and hunter all of his life and, in fact, won a Democratic congressional caucus shooting championship in 2015. Banning assault weapons would not infringe on those who hunt for recreation. Again, apply Minnesota common sense and ask any hunter you know if they would hunt with an assault-style rifle. You are likely to be laughed at. And while we’re on the subject of hunting, hunters who take their shotguns into the flyway to shoot geese or ducks are required to plug their magazine to limit the number of shells to three. Limiting the magazine capacity is the result of a treaty between Canada and the United States passed and repassed by the United States Senate (which requires a minimum of 66 votes). The monster who killed and injured the children at Annunciation Catholic School fired at least 116 shots. Laws that would sensibly limit magazine size should be easy to pass this year—we should care more about children than ducks or geese.
Reload.
Banning assault weapons, and sensible limitation of magazine size, should be the start of our discussion. We have a constitutional right enshrined in the Second Amendment to own firearms, and that right should be respected. Mental health issues deserve to be addressed, and not just in the context of an excuse to maintain assault weapon ownership. And hopefully in this debate, we will discuss adequate funding of police (Minneapolis is approximately 130 cops short of its authorized force). We would hope that respectful debate considers state financing of police resources in our schools. But that is a larger debate. The issue here should be a ban on assault weapons and reasonable restrictions on firearm magazine size. If we do not do that—
Reload.
Again, again, again.
Read more from this issue
Sincerely yours,
Vance K. Opperman
Gun owner and permit holder
