Minnesota Gun Owners for Safety Respond to Triple Murder-Suicide by Calling for Action
December 2, 2019 — Minnesota Gun Owners for Safety released the following statement after a shooting this weekend in Minneapolis left three people dead in an apparent domestic-related triple murder-suicide.
Statement from Bob Mokos of Minnesota Gun Owners for Safety:
“This horrific shooting should shake our state to its core. Gun violence has become so inescapable that not even Thanksgiving weekend, a time for friends and family, can go by without an incident that shatters a community. We must stand up and say enough. The grandstanding and obstruction we’ve seen from Republicans in the state Senate must be met with demands for leadership and action. Minnesota is united in the desire to keep our communities safe from gun violence. Now, it’s time for elected officials to listen up. They need to do something so stories like this one, where a dangerous individual hurts his family with a gun, are no longer routine. There’s no time to waste.”
According to reports, police responded Sunday morning to a shooting at a home in South Minneapolis. Upon arriving, officers recovered the bodies of two young boys, 8 and 11, shot outside the house. After entering the home, police found the bodies of a woman and a man—the man dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Minnesota Gun Owners for Safety launched this past April at a roundtable in Minneapolis. A coalition of hunters, sport shooters, and collectors, the mission of the new group is to support gun violence prevention laws while respecting the Second Amendment and promoting gun safety. They have three goals: reduce gun violence in Minnesota, shift the culture, and promote responsible gun ownership.
This year, a legislative conference committee passed public safety legislation that failed to include background checks and an extreme risk protection order supported by House, Governor Walz, and Minnesota voters. The expanded background checks and extreme risk protection order were part of the House’s public safety bill.
Despite progress in the House to pass these gun violence prevention efforts, the Senate’s version of the public safety bill did not include background checks and an extreme risk protection order. The legislative package that came out of the conference committee between the two chambers did not include the House gun safety proposals after Senate Republicans refused.
In recent years, Minnesota has been hit hard by the gun violence epidemic:
- Minnesota faces 389 gun-related deaths per year, for an average of more than one death per day.
- 533 Minnesotans per year are injured in non-fatal shootings.
- Gun violence costs Minnesota $764 million per year—and that figure only includes the directly measurable losses associated with healthcare, law enforcement, employer costs, and lost employee income.
Click here to read a full overview of the cost of gun violence in Minnesota.