In a significant move to combat gun violence, the Minnesota Senate has pushed through important legislation, with Senator Liz Boldon at the forefront. Dubbed House File 2609, the bill aggressively targets straw purchases—where individuals buy firearms on behalf of others prohibited from owning them—and implements regulations on trigger modifications that amp up firearms' firing rates.
Senator Boldon, hailing from Rochester and representing the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party, vocalized her backing for the bill which passed last Thursday, citing grim statistics from the Centers for Disease Control that firearms have become the leading killer of children and youth in the nation since 2020 and pointing to the dire need for more than just thoughts and prayers after repeatedly witnessing senseless violence, she championed for a concrete solution.
The recently passed bill takes aim at two specific areas of concern: it significantly raises the stakes for those who would evade gun laws by purchasing weapons for those barred from owning them and clamps down on modifications like binary triggers—a mechanism infamously linked to the tragic loss of law enforcement officers in Burnsville, Minnesota.
In a statement made after the bill's passage, Boldon fixated on the transformative potential of the legislation, championing its forceful step towards curtailing gun violence—and with a history of support for similar measures, she welcomed another stride in her legislative journey to make Minnesota a safer place, "Today's legislation does two things. One, it will keep guns out of the hands of folks who should not have them, by increasing penalties on people who conduct 'straw purchases' of firearms and transfer them to folks who are prohibited from possessing them. Two, it outlaws deadly binary trigger modifications, such as the one used in the recent tragedy in Burnsville, Minnesota, where the lives of multiple law enforcement officers and first responders were taken," she reinforced the measures she believes are crucial steps toward lessening the grip of gun violence on her state.
