Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar said Thursday she is “so tired” of congressional inaction on gun control in the wake of a school shooting in Minneapolis that left two children dead and 17 others injured.
Appearing on Morning Joe, the Democrat described the grief gripping her home state after a gunman opened fire during a mass at Annunciation Catholic School on Wednesday, killing an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old.
Host Willie Geist pressed her on what Congress can do. “The person who carried out this shooting, the warning signs were all over the place,” he said. “Legally purchased three guns very recently, according to police, had more guns at home as well. What more can be done from where you sit, Senator?”
Klobuchar responded bluntly. “Well, I’m so tired of some of my colleagues who won’t stand up and vote for some stricter national gun standards,” she said. “And this will not hurt hunters—we’re a proud hunting state of Minnesota—but it’s not one-size-fits-all for every shooting.”
The Senator cited common proposals, including better background checks, limits on multiple gun purchases, age restrictions, and bans on assault weapons. “One of the guns, there was a pistol, a shotgun, and a rifle used, all legally purchased in this case, but I believe one of them, the rifle, was some kind of assault weapon.”
Klobuchar recalled speaking with shaken families after the massacre, including a friend with three children inside the school. “These parents, of course, are focused, and they’re focused on guns as has happened in the past,” she said.
She also referenced her conversations with parents of past shootings. “I remember one of the Connecticut parents saying to me, you know, we have the courage through our grief—she lost her son—to come to Washington is the day the background check bill went down… Why don’t these people have the courage to stand up and vote for it?”
She was likely referring to the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 20 children dead in 2012.
Klobuchar’s frustration was clear. “We know what’s worked in other countries, we know what could work online to check for some of these things, and yet everyone is just stymied,” she said.
“And I am personally just about had it with how you can imagine that could be your kid in that church, your kid in that school, and it’s by the grace of the God that it wasn’t.”
Klobuchar has long supported stricter gun laws. She co-sponsored the Background Check Expansion Act, first introduced in 2019, and has said repeatedly that universal checks are “common sense.”
She has also backed legislation allowing law enforcement or family members to petition courts to temporarily remove firearms from people deemed dangerous.
The Democrat voted for the 2013 Manchin-Toomey amendment after the Sandy Hook massacre, which would have expanded background checks, but it failed in the Senate.
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has ordered all flags flown at the White House and on federal property to be flown at half-staff until Aug. 31 to honor the victims.
The post Klobuchar Says She’s ‘So Tired’ With Colleagues Refusing Gun Control appeared first on The Daily Beast.
