Expanded Gun-Control Fails in Minnesota Legislature

Expanded gun-control measures in Minnesota tanked last week after Democrats failed to demonstrate the courage of their convictions in the wake of potential backlash from 2nd Amendment supporters.

At issue were two of gun control advocates' more popular restrictions nowadays: NICS checks for private-party gun transfers, and so-called "red-flag laws" which aim to deprive people of their 2nd Amendment rights without due process.

The Political Play on Expanded Gun-Control

Democrats control the Minnesota House; Republicans the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, a Republican, challenged Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and Majority Leader Ryan Winkler, to pass each of the bills separately. The Democrats declined and moved to attach both laws as part of the state's massive public safety bill.

With the anti-2nd Amendment bills just a small part of a much larger public safety spending bill, Democrats in swing districts would be afforded a measure of plausible deniability if the issue is raised during their re-election campaigns (and you can be sure it would be). If the bills had to be passed through the House separately, it would either expose those swing Democrats to potential blowback if they support the bills, or cause a split in the Democratic caucus if they vote against them.

That's a stalemate

Democrats rejected Gazelka's offer to potentially reveal a split in their caucus, and sent the larger public safety bill with the two gun-control riders. But those provisions won't get a vote in the Senate because of a bit of legislative jiujitsu on Gazelka's part.

In other words, to allow the gun control ideas into the public safety budget bill would paralyze that bill — and all the essential funding contained within it. (Procedurally, Gazelka can keep the gun control language out of the budget bill if no hearing or committee vote is ever held on the gun provisions.)

Then Gazelka summarized the matter: “We weren’t going to have hearings. We were going to push it off until next year and work on the budget, but we decided that if they were serious about it and they wanted to give us an up or down vote, that we would have hearings. Well, they’ve chosen not to take that path, and that’s why I say both gun bills are dead.”

For at least another year, there will be no expanded gun-control and Minnesota will not be joining the ranks of the states with Restricted Arms.