Governor Tim Walz’s recent executive orders addressing gun violence represent a critical first step, but they highlight a troubling reality: we’re celebrating basic safety measures that should have been implemented long ago. The relief expressed by parents, students, and medical professionals reveals how desperately our society has normalized gun violence rather than treating it as the public health crisis it truly is.
The scene at the signing ceremony—parents describing children who duck when crossing their living rooms, students wondering if their school will be next, and emergency physicians recounting weekly gunshot wounds—paints a devastating portrait of American exceptionalism in the worst possible way. No other developed nation accepts this level of persistent fear as normal.
The Real Cost of Political Paralysis
What stands out most in this story is the psychological trauma inflicted on an entire generation. Dan Manchon’s description of his daughters’ behaviors—avoiding windows, fearing darkness, ducking while crossing their living room—represents thousands of children across Minnesota and millions nationwide who are developing trauma responses that will shape their development and mental health for decades.
The American Psychological Association has documented how exposure to gun violence, even indirectly, can lead to significant mental health challenges including anxiety disorders, depression, and post-traumatic stress. A 2022 study in JAMA Pediatrics found that gun violence exposure in childhood correlates with reduced educational attainment and economic opportunity later in life.
These executive orders come far too late for the children already traumatized. When Lexi Anderson, a high school junior, says, “It’s hard to hold hope that things can change,” she’s articulating a generational despair that represents a profound failure of leadership. Children shouldn’t have to form activism chapters just to feel safe in their classrooms.
Medical Reality vs. Political Fiction
Dr. Tim Kummer’s perspective as an HCMC emergency physician cuts through the political rhetoric surrounding gun debates. His stark comparison—”When you shoot a gun at a range and it hits a piece of paper the hole isn’t that different. When you shoot a gun and it hits flesh, when it hits a child’s back, when it hits someone’s arm the hole is very different”—brings medical reality into a conversation too often dominated by abstract principles.
The healthcare costs alone should motivate action. A 2021 study in the Annals of Internal Medicine estimated that gun violence costs the U.S. healthcare system $2.8 billion annually in initial hospital treatments alone. This doesn’t account for long-term care, rehabilitation, mental health services, or lost productivity.
Dr. Kummer’s observation about patients frequently returning to the emergency room with gunshot complications underscores how our current metrics fail to capture the true cost. Each shooting creates a lifetime of medical consequences, often borne by taxpayers through public insurance programs or passed on through higher insurance premiums.
Breaking the False Binary
Perhaps the most important aspect of this story is the repeated assertion that addressing gun violence isn’t about politics or taking away rights—it’s about saving lives. This framing challenges the false binary that has dominated the gun debate for decades.
The evidence supports this view. States with more comprehensive gun safety laws consistently show lower rates of gun deaths. Massachusetts, which has some of the strongest gun laws in the country, has a gun death rate of 3.4 per 100,000 residents, while Mississippi, with some of the weakest regulations, has a rate of 28.6 per 100,000—more than eight times higher.
What’s particularly striking about the Minnesota example is that even after a traumatic school shooting, the response is limited to executive orders rather than comprehensive legislation. This incremental approach—while better than nothing—reveals how the political system remains structurally resistant to addressing gun violence at the scale required.
Alternative Viewpoints: Addressing the Rights Argument
Gun rights advocates often argue that any restriction infringes on constitutional rights and that criminals will obtain weapons regardless of laws. This perspective deserves serious engagement rather than dismissal.
The constitutional argument has merit in that the Second Amendment does protect gun ownership. However, the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that this right is not unlimited. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the Second Amendment is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
As for the argument that criminals will ignore laws anyway, this logic applies to virtually all criminal legislation. We don’t abandon laws against theft because thieves will steal regardless. Laws serve multiple purposes: deterrence, creating legal consequences, establishing norms, and providing legal frameworks for enforcement. Evidence from other countries demonstrates that comprehensive gun regulations do reduce both gun crime and overall homicide rates.
Moving Beyond Executive Orders
Governor Walz’s executive orders represent a starting point, not an endpoint. They address background checks and promote safe storage, but meaningful change requires a more comprehensive approach that includes:
1. Universal background checks through legislation rather than executive action
2. Extreme risk protection orders (“red flag laws”) that allow temporary removal of firearms from individuals in crisis
3. Investment in community violence intervention programs that address root causes
4. Research funding to better understand gun violence as a public health issue
5. Cultural change around gun ownership that emphasizes responsibility and safety
Dr. Kummer’s call for changing the culture around guns points to the deeper work required. Policy changes alone won’t solve the problem if we don’t address the cultural factors that normalize gun violence and obstruct evidence-based solutions.
Conclusion
When children are developing trauma responses from surviving mass shootings and high schoolers are forming activism groups just to feel heard, we’ve normalized a profound societal failure. Governor Walz’s executive orders deserve recognition as a step forward, but they also highlight how far we still need to go.
The parents, students, and medical professionals in this story aren’t asking for radical change—they’re asking for basic protections that most developed nations take for granted. Their willingness to speak to “anybody regardless of party” demonstrates that this issue transcends traditional political divisions.
The question now is whether Minnesota—and America—can move beyond incremental steps toward a comprehensive approach that treats gun violence as the public health crisis it is. Children shouldn’t have to duck while crossing their living rooms. That this statement needs to be made at all is perhaps the most damning indictment of our current approach.
