Robbins joins a GOP gubernatorial field that includes Scott Jensen [“I recommend Ivermectin and tape on your butt to catch the little critters as they try to escape”] and Kendall Qualls, both of whom ran for governor in 2022. Former U.S. naval intelligence officer Phillip Parrish [run away as fast as you can, Republicans] and retired mixed martial arts fighter Brad Kohler are also running.
Admittedly, Robbins looks good in this field without knowing anything about her. But she has at least some off the usual Republican pathologies; she’s a gun nut, for example. Let me explain.
Guns are in the news, of course, and the Republicans who love them should be, too.
A revealing episode in the gun love affair of Republicans is the brouhaha over a recent Minnesota Supreme Court case, State v. Blevins. The case, decided in 2024, affirmed a long-standing (adopted by our Supreme Court in 1865) feature of criminal law in Minnesota: a defendant cannot assert self-defense to a criminal charge of bodily harm to another if the defendant had a chance to retreat from a confrontation. Walk away, de-escalate, not escalate.
The Republicans — hectored endlessly by Rob Doar and his anonymous money, no doubt — filed a bill, H.F. 13, in the 2025 session to eliminate the duty to retreat when possible. Violent confrontations with weapons took a material uptick in every state where shoot first has been adopted. I wrote a second story about H.F. 13, too, An invitation to an escalation, which discusses the Blevins case (which was about a machete, not a gun, but still about self defense) in a little more detail and features the aforementioned Rob Doar.
If you check out H.F. 13 — which failed on the House floor this session, incidentally — you’ll see it had 34 Republican sponsors.
The Republican Pat-Nixon-cloth-coat suburban mom and fourth-term Minnesota House member from Maple Grove, Kristen Robbins, was one of them.
Suburban women — and everybody else, too — should take these facts and ponder them in your hearts.