Credit where credit is due
Today, August 27, 2026, is the one-year anniversary of the AR-15 shooter’s spraying bullets, 116 in total and in moments at Annunciation Church and School in Minneapolis. It left two children, named Harper and Fletcher, dead, and many people, children and adults, wounded, some grievously. I wrote about the shooting and an effort to deflect from the real cause of the tragedy here.
For the first time, probably in forever, a bill to prohibit AR-15 style rifles in Minnesota came close to passage in the most-recently-concluded legislative session. A bill did pass the Minnesota Senate on May 4, 2026.
But in spite of telling Harper’s mom and dad that she would permit an assault weapons ban bill to come to the House floor, Speaker Lisa Démuth did not. Her excuse was that the Senate’s companion bill did not go through the committee process.
The House did have a companion bill, and it did not complete a circuit through the committees. But as the Speaker, Démuth (the way she should spell it, based on the way she pronounces it) could have pulled it up, or called a vote on the transmitted Senate version. The House committees were split 50-50, explaining why the bill didn’t run the committee gauntlet.
In any event, she broke her promise to Harper’s parents.
Would the bill have passed an evenly-split Minnesota House? Maybe, maybe not, but there would be some swing district Republican House members sweating their ‘no’ votes. A vote either way would have been illuminating.
Lisa Démuth can’t stand up to Rob Doar, nevermind the hyenas in the Trump administration.
She is not gubernatorial material by any stretch of the imagination.
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