As governor, Walz signed a number of gun safety measures into law, including universal background checks, a “red flag” law that allows law enforcement or family members to petition a judge if there are concerns around someone’s use of firearms and harsher punitive measures for people caught purchasing a firearm for someone ineligible of gun ownership. Earlier this year, he signed legislation to prohibit automatic weapon modification devices and for the state to collect gun crime data.
Walz has spoken publicly about his evolution on gun safety: Following the Route 91 Harvest Festival mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017, he donated the $18,000 in campaign contributions he had received from the NRA to a fund supporting the families of service members injured or killed in active duty. After the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a few months later, Walz called in an opinion piece for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune for an assault weapons ban, writing, “I’ve listened hard to students, parents, law enforcement, teachers, sportsmen and survivors of gun violence, in every corner of Minnesota. And while they have different perspectives, I’ve heard them all say one thing loud and clear: This. Needs. To. Stop.” He then cosponsored an assault weapons ban during his final year in Congress, in 2018.
Vance
During his Senate campaign, Vance voiced opposition to assault weapons bans, universal background checks, and red flag laws. He received $500,000 in campaign contributions from the NRA. While campaigning, he also said that had he been in office, he would have voted against the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the 2022 bill signed into law by President Joe Biden that is the most robust piece of gun safety legislation to have been enacted in over 30 years.
Vance has also spoken out against red flag laws, increased background check measures and bump stock bans, saying that further investment in law enforcement and mental health services are the best protective measures against gun violence, especially school shootings. On the campaign trail, he has not offered details on what kind of plans he would implement to support and invest in these kinds of programs.
Following the mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, in September, Vance called school shootings “a fact of life.”
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Chabeli Carrazana, Jennifer Gerson, Kate Sosin, Nadra Nittle, Sara Luterman, and Shefali Luthra contributed reporting.
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