Testimony in Support of Various Gun-related Legislation

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Minnesota Senate Judiciary Committee
March 13, 2026

Dear Chair Latz and Members of the Committee:

We write to offer support for multiple pieces of gun-related legislation being heard today. The Minnesota Catholic Conference has consistently supported common-sense gun legislation that connects rights with responsibilities, and that promotes the common good.

The legislation we support here today¹ is as follows:

1. S.F. 3661 (Latz) prohibiting the sale of "ghost" guns
2. S.F. 3825 (Limmer) firearm storage regulation
3. S.F. 3837 (Latz) Extreme risk protection orders awareness campaign
4. S.F. 4200 (Gustafson) Reenactment of trigger activator legislation

Stopping guns from acting like automatic weapons that can inflict mass casualties (S.F. 4200) is necessary and prudent in an age of nihilistic violence. Along those same lines, ensuring more people know that they can stop people who are a threat to themselves and others through extreme risk protection orders (S.F. 3837) is a low-cost and necessary means of violence prevention. Relatedly, ensuring people who own guns store them away from children and those who are a potential danger to others (S.F. 3825) is a reasonable mandate.

Similarly, background check laws and regulations regarding the sale of certain firearms exist to ensure that dangerous weapons are being tracked and that people who purchase them can exercise that right responsibly. Allowing ghost guns to circumvent that system endangers public safety, and, therefore, S.F. 3661, closes a loophole in terms of who can access guns.

As the directors of The Violence Project at Hamline University testified in the House Education Finance Committee on March 5, gun regulations are only one part of the solution to stop mass shootings, particularly in schools. We propose others such as improving school safety funding, protecting kids online, reversing recreational marijuana legalization, and improving access to mental health resources. But reasonable gun regulations do not trample the Second Amendment, and can protect innocent human life by upholding the right not to be shot. We need to give more people a chance, and these regulations, while not a complete panacea, are more steps in the right direction.

Thank you for your consideration.

Jason Adkins,
Executive Director
[email protected]

¹Regarding S.F. 3655 (Mohamed), although we support the high-capacity magazine ban and, conceptually, an assault rifle ban, we are still
reviewing this legislation to better understand its breadth and what exactly is being regulated by the assault weapons ban.