The Minnesota Senate passed sweeping gun control legislation in a 34-33, party-line vote on Monday afternoon. That bill, SF 4067, would require Minnesotans to register many of their firearms with the state government.
Since last year, Minnesota Democrats have called for expansive new gun control laws in response to the Annunciation School shooting that occurred last year. That shooting, which was perpetrated by a transgender person, left two children dead and many others injured.
During this year’s legislative session, Democrats have proposed a ban on what they call “military-style assault weapons” and “large-capacity magazines.” However, Republicans in the Minnesota House of Representatives have said they will not support those ideas.
The House is evenly-divided with 67 Republicans and 67 Democrats. Meanwhile, the DFL has a one-vote majority in the Senate. On Wednesday, the Senate brought forward SF 4067 for a vote. That bill is known as the omnibus firearms bill.
Among other things, SF 4067 appropriates millions of dollars for mental health services, anonymous threat reporting systems for schools, and other items. However, the bill also contains new restrictions on so-called “semiautomatic military-style assault weapon[s]” and “large-capacity magazine[s].”
Specifically, SF 4067 bans federally licensed firearms dealers from selling a wide swath of firearms including the AR-15, the most popular firearm in America. The bill also bans federally licensed dealers from selling magazines with more than 17 rounds.
SF 4067 does allow unlicensed individuals to sell a “semiautomatic military-style assault weapon” to another unlicensed person as long as certain requirements are met.
Authored by DFL Sen. Zaynab Mohamed, SF 4067 would also require owners to alert the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension that they own one of those firearms. Owners would need to obtain a “certification of ownership” and renew it every three years.
Further, the bill would reestablish the so-called “binary trigger ban” and the prohibition on “ghost guns” that lack a serial number. Those prohibitions were struck down last year by the Minnesota Supreme Court on technicalities.
Speaking on the Senate floor before the vote, Mohamed said “the students and parents we have heard from do not want us to choose between banning weapons of war and investing in school safety — this isn’t either/or, we need both. When it comes to keeping kids safe, the only responsible choice is all of the above.”
Mohamed’s district in the Senate includes Annunciation Catholic School.
Opposing SF 4067 on the floor, GOP Sen. Andrew Lang referred to the legislation as a “gun ban and confiscation bill” that “goes far beyond public safety and strikes directly at the constitutional freedoms of law-abiding Minnesotans.”
Addressing the body, Land said, “Are we here to protect constitutional rights, or are we here to erode them when it becomes politically inconvenient? The Second Amendment is not ambiguous … it is a guarantee, a safeguard against overreach and a recognition [that] the right to self-defense belongs to the people and not to this state.”
DFL Sen. Grant Hauschild, a key swing vote who represents a large portion of northern Minnesota, gave an emotional speech on the floor in which he said two of his cousins were at Annunciation when the shooting broke out.
Hauschild said he worked with Mohamed on the bill “to make this bill work for constituents like mine.” He said the magazine threshold was raised to its current level so that common handguns were not affected. Hauschild also said the bill focuses on “restrictions on the point of sale so that future sales don’t happen, but … existing gun owners don’t get impacted.”
Hauschild, along with Sens. Rob Kupec and Aric Putnam, voted for SF 4067. All three of them represent districts that President Donald Trump won during the 2024 presidential election. Another swing-district DFLer, Sen. Judy Seeberger, also voted for the bill.
The final vote on SF 4067 was 34-33. Every Senate Democrat supported the bill while all Senate Republicans opposed it.
Following passage of the bill, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson issued a statement saying, “Democrats have put politics first today. Senate Republicans believe deeply in funding school safety and mental health for students. We could have had a bill today that would pass the Senate and the House — but Democrats were unwilling to do it.”
“Instead, they added unconstitutional, divisive, and partisan gun control measures to this bill to play politics with ‘gotcha votes’ rather than taking seriously the responsibility we all feel for our children,” added Johnson. “Senate Republicans will continue to put students first, not partisanship.”
Given the opposition to further gun control legislation in the evenly-divided House, SF 4067 is unlikely to advance this session. The 2026 legislative session is scheduled to adjourn on May 18.
Luke Sprinkel
Luke Sprinkel previously worked as a Legislative Assistant at the Minnesota House of Representatives. He grew up as a Missionary Kid (MK) living in England, Thailand, Tanzania, and the Middle East. Luke graduated from Regent University in 2018.
