Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is the epitome of the term “Fudd.” He even looks a little like Elmer Fudd in his elder years, but at least Elmer knew how to handle his shotgun, which is a big difference.
Walz wants all kinds of gun control. He’s espoused a number of measures, many of which are on the books in Minnesota. He and people like him claim they will reduce violent crime, that they’re necessary not just to prevent mass shootings, but all forms of gun crime.
If so, then Minnesota must be as safe as it gets.
Obviously, some places are pretty safe. Minneapolis, though? Not so much.
Two weekend shootings at Minneapolis homeless encampments that killed three people and wounded three others may be connected, police said.
The first occurred shortly before 4:45 a.m. Saturday, Minneapolis police said in a statement. One man was killed, and two others were wounded.
On Sunday, another triple shooting occurred about 2:20 p.m. at an encampment along railroad tracks on the 4400 block between Hiawatha and Snelling avenues, police said in a different statement.
Two men were pronounced dead at the scene despite lifesaving efforts, police said.
“This is the second triple shooting at two separate homeless encampments in two days,” police said. “MPD has not ruled out the possibility that this shooting and the triple shooting that occurred on October 26th are related.”
A woman was also critically wounded, police said. Police did not provide details about her condition Monday.
Police said they were investigating the possibility of suspects who fled the Sunday shooting on foot. Three men were initially detained but were cleared and released.
Police said Monday afternoon there have been no arrests. The encampments are less than 4 miles apart in the same precinct.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told the media that, while violent crime is going down in areas of the city, violence in and near homeless encampments has escalated. He blamed the surge on fentanyl and called the shootings “incredibly tragic and sad.”
Now, I’m fully prepared to blast Frey blaming fentanyl, but I won’t because I don’t know that he’s wrong. A lot of people are homeless for a reason, and it has nothing to do with housing prices in this day and age. They’d be homeless if rent were $10 a month.
But Minnesota has a lot of gun control that, at least in theory, was intended to stop these kinds of things. They require universal background checks on handguns–which is what the killers presumably used–and even require a state-issued permit to buy handguns lawfully.
And yet, either these killers were otherwise law-abiding citizens, or they got guns illegally, and then used them. In either case, it’s evidence that gun control isn’t really going to stop people from doing bad things.
As noted above, officials aren’t sure if these shooting were connected, but it seems likely that they were. Homeless encampments are a problem and as Frey noted, violence has increased around the encampments while it’s gone down throughout the rest of the city as it has throughout much of the country, reportedly. It’s not difficult to imagine this is someone settling scores.
Folks who do that aren’t going to follow gun control laws.
Yet let’s remember that Tim Walz wants to make some of these laws federal. He wants to enact similar laws and much worse, all while we see them not working in his own home state.
