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Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday took some modest steps on guns through executive measures after being unable to muster legislative support to pass restrictions on firearms and ammunition.
Walz signed two executive orders he said could help head off gun violence. One creates a statewide safety council to examine and help reduce the effects of gun violence. The other calls for tracking the cost of gun violence and adds funding to educate gun owners on safe storage.
Walz set in motion a public awareness effort on Extreme Risk Protection Orders, which are court orders that can temporarily revoke guns from people deemed a risk. His order says the relatively new law has been used 400 times to head off risks but could be an even more potent tool if promoted more widely and data on how and where the orders are granted is made public more regularly.
"These actions today don't limit your freedoms at all. Being shot dead in your school certainly does," Walz said. “There's no one fix to this, but there are certainly things that we know. There are certain things we've learned globally that make a difference, and these two actions will be another step in that direction."
The moves attracted political pushback from Republicans, who said Walz was making a public-relations play rather than getting at root causes of gun violence.
For months, Walz sought legislative curbs on assault-style guns and high-capacity magazines following the deadly mass shooting in late August at Minneapolis’ Annunciation Catholic Church and School. But attempts to marshal backing for a special session to pass new laws faltered.
Surrounded at the Capitol by advocates for tougher gun laws and the families of several victims of the Annunciation shooting, Walz acknowledged Tuesday he didn’t have the power on his own to outlaw those weapons or magazines, “but what I do have is the ability to do is to start to move in a direction.”
Annunciation parent Dan Manchon said while it's a step in the right direction, he hopes the Legislature will take further actions.
“We're just asking folks to move their feet. And that's why we're here with the governor today,” Manchon said. “At least he's trying to do something. And I just hope everybody can have a conversation and and open their minds to potentially what's best for the kids and how to protect them.”
Walz and top Democratic lawmakers say they’ll make a new push to change gun laws when the Legislature reconvenes for its 2026 session in February.
Of the families in the room, Walz said, “There's frustration, and I have told them it's my responsibility to do all I can to move it. will do what I can do. We did a lot of research on these. It's taken a while to make sure we were locked in on what we were able to get, but we'll continue to do more of it. It's the proliferation of parents. They expect action. They expect us to do things.
Walz had vowed to act on gun control measures “one way or another” following the Annunciation shooting and talked for weeks during the fall about calling a special session — something only he can do — but it never materialized.
House Republicans did not want a session focused only on Walz’s priorities, and a lack of clarity on whether Walz had the full backing of all Democrats in the evenly split House and closely divided Senate.
Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, faulted Walz for his approach.
“Executive action to study and educate the public on gun safety are not actual solutions to keeping kids safe in school,” Johnson said in a written statement. “Addressing mental health, intervening before a crisis turns violent, and active safety protocols are real solutions that Republicans support to keep our kids safe.”
The lack of a special session led to growing frustration among Annunciation parents and others who were lobbying hard for action to prevent future gun tragedies.
"Protecting Minnesotans from gun violence is not about blame. It's about responsibility,” said Kristen Neville, another parent of children at the school.
The DFL and Walz convened a series of public forums on gun violence across the state to try to build support and keep the issue on people’s minds.
The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus said it has concerns with the makeup of the safety council, which the gun rights group said will likely arrive at a predetermined outcome. But mostly, caucus chair Bryan Strawser said the actions were short of the sweeping actions that might have provoked a lawsuit.
“What we got today were low-impact orders that serve more as political cover than meaningful policy,” Strawser said in a statement posted to the group’s website. “It’s a distraction from the fact that the governor couldn’t build support for his agenda within his own party.”
In a statement Tuesday, Minnesota GOP Chair Alex Plechash dismissed the executive orders as a “clear admission of weakness” that the governor couldn’t get enough support from his own party for a special session that Plechash said would have focused on “an extreme, partisan gun ban.”
Republicans have said they pushed Walz to lay out in writing what specific guns he sought to ban and how he’d carry it out, but they said he never produced a formal bill.
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