A Minnesota lawmaker says “Resist” before the governor-elect takes office
Minnesota Republican state Rep. Ben Davis posted a single word after Governor-elect Amy Klobuchar named gun safety legislation a top priority: “Resist.”
That word carries weight. It arrived after Klobuchar said the state’s gun safety bill “is going to get passed” and called it one of her top priorities in her first press conference after winning the governor’s office.
The bill at issue, Senate File 4067, passed the Minnesota Senate by a 34-33 vote earlier this year. It never received a House floor vote.
If revived and enacted, it would prohibit federally licensed dealers from selling certain semiautomatic military-style assault weapons, including AR-15s, and magazines that hold more than 17 rounds.
People who already own covered firearms and magazines could keep them. They would need certification from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, renewed every three years. Knowingly possessing an uncertified weapon or magazine would be a gross misdemeanor, with a later violation punishable as a felony.
What Klobuchar said
Klobuchar did not say that every detail of the earlier bill would return unchanged. She said changes were likely, but that she hoped the basics would remain.
She also framed the proposal as part of a broader agenda. In the same press conference, she discussed economic growth, lowering costs, fraud prevention, and a promised audit of state agencies.
That matters. A governor-elect’s first public list of priorities tells voters what she intends to spend political capital on before the work of governing begins. Klobuchar chose to put a contested firearms bill near the top.
The legislation grew out of the Annunciation school shooting. It would also have included funding for school safety and mental health programs, along with restrictions on privately made firearms, often called ghost guns.
Why “resist” lands hard
The criticism was immediate. Conservative commentators, the NRA, and some Republican officials accused Klobuchar of threatening the rights of lawful gun owners.
Davis’s post went further. “We have a duty to our nation to not comply,” he wrote. “Resist.”
I understand why gun owners hear a proposal to restrict sales of certain rifles and magazines as a direct threat to something they value. The Second Amendment is not an abstraction to people who keep firearms for protection, hunting, sport, or family tradition.
But “resist” is a blunt word to use about a bill that has not passed the House, has not been signed into law, and may be revised. It turns a legislative dispute into a test of obedience before the legislature has even debated the final text.
That worries me. Not because elected officials cannot oppose a bill. They can, loudly and fully. The concern is what happens when opposition is framed as refusal to comply with a law that does not yet exist.
The political reality
Klobuchar will take office in January. Democrats won control of both chambers of the Minnesota Legislature, giving her party a trifecta.
That makes passage more plausible than it was last session, when the Republican-led House never brought the Senate-passed package to a vote.
Still, a narrow one-vote Senate margin is not a mandate to stop listening. A bill that passes 34-33 leaves room for real disagreement, including among people who support some gun safety measures but oppose particular restrictions.
Klobuchar has said she wants to move the state forward rather than left or right. That is a familiar political line, and voters will judge it by the choices she makes when those words meet a specific bill.
Her early emphasis on gun legislation will likely please supporters who see the proposal as a response to school violence. It will likely alarm others who see it as government intrusion into lawful ownership. Both reactions are understandable.
What remains unsettled
Several things are not yet known. It is not clear which parts of the earlier proposal Klobuchar would preserve, change, or drop. Her office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on that question.
It is also not clear how the final bill would treat existing owners, dealers, specific firearms, or the certification process. The prior Senate version provides a reference point, but legislation can change substantially between introduction and final passage.
And it remains to be seen whether the new Legislature will take up the measure quickly, slowly, or in a different form altogether. Klobuchar’s prediction that the bill will pass is a statement of intent, not a completed legislative outcome.
For Minnesotans, the practical question is narrower than the slogans. Would the proposal reduce gun violence without making lawful ownership unnecessarily difficult? Would it protect schools and communities while treating rural gun owners, hunters, and collectors with respect? Those questions deserve answers before anyone declares the debate finished.
The word “resist” may rally people who already oppose the bill. It may also harden the conversation before the details have been heard. In a statehouse, that can be a costly way to begin.
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