A Republican-controlled committee in the Minnesota House on a vote of 9-to-7 has tabled a bill that would require background checks on all private sales of firearms in Minnesota. Joseph Olson with the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance testified that history demonstrates background checks don’t prevent mass shootings. Olson says, “The solution for a massacre that’s taking place anywhere is to have a good guy with gun there, able to act, right now, right there.”
Democratic Representative Raymond Dehn from Minneapolis responded, “At Parkland there was a school resource officer — deputy — that never went into the building, and there were several other deputies there.”
President Trump’s comments supporting background checks have ratcheted-up an already controversial issue at the Minnesota Capitol.