I'm going to write this one differently, because the usual gun essay — here's my ideal law, take it or leave it — has produced exactly nothing for thirty years. Instead I'm going to write it the way I'd write a settlement: what does each side actually need, what can each side actually give, and what's the deal that both can sign.
Start with the fact that reframes everything. When you picture "gun deaths in Minnesota," you probably picture a shooting. But the majority of Minnesotans who die by a gun each year die by suicide — not homicide, not a mass shooting, not a stranger. That's true in most states, and it's been true for years. The two sides have spent decades arguing about the AR-15 and the criminal while the largest share of the actual deaths was somewhere else entirely, in a quiet moment, with a gun that was already in the house. Aim the policy at where the deaths actually are, and suddenly there's a lot to agree on.
Term one: aim at suicide — and give gun owners the lead
What the safety side gets: the single largest category of gun deaths addressed head-on. What the gun-rights side gets: no confiscation, no registry, no ban — and ownership of the solution.
The evidence here is unusually clear. Most suicide attempts are impulsive, and the outcome depends enormously on the means at hand; putting time and space between a person in crisis and a firearm saves lives. So: free lockboxes and voluntary safe-storage programs. "Hold my guns" partnerships where a gun shop or a friend stores a firearm during a hard stretch, no questions and no paperwork. Gun-shop suicide-prevention programs, run by shop owners themselves, which have been embraced by the firearms community in state after state precisely because they're built by gun people, not imposed on them. None of this touches anyone's right to own a gun. All of it touches the deaths.
Term two: a red-flag law with the due process the other side is right to demand
What the safety side gets: a real tool to separate a person in acute crisis from a firearm. What the gun-rights side gets: the constitutional protections it has, correctly, been insisting on.
The honest objection to red-flag laws isn't that they're useless — it's that a badly written one lets the government take property on thin evidence with no lawyer and no fair hearing. That objection is right, and the answer isn't to drop the tool; it's to build it properly. So: guaranteed counsel for the gun owner, a fast hearing measured in days, a real evidentiary standard (clear and convincing, not a hunch), automatic return of the firearm when the order expires, and real penalties for false petitions. A red-flag law with those terms is one a serious gun owner can look at and say: fine — that's how the government is supposed to take anything from anyone. Strip the due process out and you deserve to lose the argument. Put it in and you deserve to win it.
Term three: negligent storage is real liability, the way it is with a car
What the safety side gets: accountability when a gun ends up in the hands of a child or a prohibited person. What the gun-rights side gets: a rule that punishes negligence, not ownership — the same standard we already apply to everything else dangerous.
I'm the lawyer in the room, so let me put it plainly. If you leave your car running with the keys in it and a kid takes it and hurts someone, you're on the hook. If you leave a loaded handgun in the nightstand and your ten-year-old takes it to school, the law should treat that the same way. Not as a crime of ownership — as civil liability for negligent storage, which is how we handle every other dangerous thing we're allowed to own. Responsible gun owners already store their firearms this way. This rule only ever touches the ones who don't.
What I'm not asking for — and why
Notice what's not in the deal: no assault-weapons ban, no magazine limits, no registry, no licensing scheme. Not because those debates are illegitimate, but because they're the terms that have blocked everything else for thirty years. A negotiation that opens with the other side's red line isn't a negotiation. I'd rather win three things that save real lives than lose one thing that makes a great speech.
The honest concession
To the safety side: this deal doesn't stop a determined mass shooter, and I won't pretend it does. To the gun-rights side: a red-flag law, even a fair one, is still the state acting on a prediction about a person, and that's a serious thing — which is exactly why I insist the due process be real rather than decorative. Neither side gets everything. Both sides get the part that actually moves the numbers.
What I'd actually do
Fund suicide-focused storage and gun-shop partnership programs, led by the firearms community.
Pass a red-flag law with guaranteed counsel, a fast hearing, a clear-and-convincing standard, automatic return, and false-petition penalties.
Establish negligent-storage civil liability, mirroring how we treat every other dangerous thing a person is allowed to own.
The gun debate is stuck arguing about the rifle while most of the dead are dying by their own hand. Here's a deal aimed at the actual deaths — with due process nobody can honestly object to. It can be negotiated. It can be won.
First the facts. Then the fix.
Sources
This is a policy position. The finding that suicides constitute the majority of firearm deaths in Minnesota and nationally is drawn from CDC WONDER mortality data and Minnesota Department of Health vital-statistics reporting. The evidence on suicide impulsivity and means restriction ("time and space") is summarized by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center's Means Matter project; gun-shop suicide-prevention partnerships originated with the New Hampshire Gun Shop Project (2009) and have been adopted in numerous states. Extreme-risk (red-flag) statutes exist in roughly 21 states; Minnesota's 2023 law is codified at Minn. Stat. §§ 624.7171–624.7178. Negligent-storage liability is modeled on ordinary tort principles applied to other dangerous instrumentalities.
Specific Minnesota suicide-share percentages and the exact provisions of Minnesota's current red-flag statute were not quoted verbatim this pass and are described in general terms; confirm current figures and statutory text before citing specifics. Corrections: campaign@madgettformn.com.