With a DFL trifecta in place controlling the Minnesota House, Senate, and the Governor’s Mansion, the 2023 legislative session has been moving very quickly with thousands of bills introduced and hundreds moving through hearings.
This page is intended to briefly summarize the key gun control bills and their current status in the legislature.
In the Minnesota House, the DFL has a large majority, and we are not confident we could stop gun control bills from passing. However, the DFL has a one-seat majority in the Minnesota Senate with several greater Minnesota legislators. These gun control bills can be stopped in the Minnesota Senate.
SF2909 containing Red Flag Gun Confiscation & Universal Background Checks passed both houses and was signed into law by Governor Walls in May 2023.
As always, you can find the status of any bill in near real-time on our Legislative Tracker. Check the top section, 2023 Minnesota Session – Bills in Motion, for a quick summary of the current status of bills that have had hearings and our position on each bill.
Last updated: May 20th, 2023
Omnibus Bills
The legislature is moving very large omnibus bills containing the state’s two-year budgets for the Governor’s cabinet-level agencies and programs, such as Public Safety, Judiciary, Natural Resources & Environment, and Health and Human Services.
These bills are often 150-400+ pages in length and contain hundreds of budget & policy provisions.
We have to monitor these bills very carefully to ensure that gun control provisions are not buried in them or snuck in via amendment when the bills move through a committee or hit the floor of the House or Senate.
SF 2909: Senate Public Safety Omnibus Bill (Passed and signed into law - May 2023)
- The DFL removed all gun control policy provisions from the Senate bill on March 28th, 2023.
- This bill did have enabling funding for red flags & universal background checks for IT systems and other technology elements that would need to be setup if these bills are later passed.
Current status of the Senate version of SF 2909:
- This bill has passed through all Senate committees and then was passed on the Senate Floor on April 14th, 2023.
House Version of SF 2909:
- After the Senate passed SF2909, their version of the Public Safety Omnibus without any gun control provisions (but with funding for them), it moved over to the House. The House then replaced the text of SF2909 in the House with the text from HF 2890 and passed it through Ways and Means.
- SF 2909 in the House version now contains Red Flags & UBCs. It was debated on the House Floor on April 25th, and 26th and passed on April 26th with bipartisan opposition.
Conference Committee
- The House and Senate appointed a conference committee to “iron out the differences” in the two versions of SF2909.
- The committee is all DFLers with no GOP representation. The members are:
- Senate: Latz, Oumou Verbeten, Pappas, Seeberger, Westlin
- House: Moller, Becker-Finn, Feist, Frazier, Curran
- On May 9th, the committee posted gun control provisions for Red Flags & Universal Background Checks on their website. 14 minutes late, they voted to add the measures into the bill.
- The final version of the bill was released in the early morning hours of Friday, May 12th.
Final Floor Action
- Senate
- The bill passed on a party-line vote on Friday, May 12th.
- House
- The bill passed with bi-partisan opposition on Monday, May 15th.
- Governor
- Governor Walz signed this bill into law on Friday, May 19th, 2023.
Caucus Testimony
As always, check the current status of the bills in our Legislative Tracker.
HF 2890: House Public Safety Omnibus
The DFL buried two gun control provisions in this 300+ page bill:
- Red Flag Gun Confiscation
- Universal Background Checks
Current status of HF 2890:
- HF 2890 passed the House Public Safety Committee on a party line vote on March 30th, 2023 and is currently pending before the House Ways & Means Committee.
- After the Senate passed SF2909, their version of the Public Safety Omnibus without any gun control provisions (but with funding for them), it moved over to the house. The House then replaced the text of SF2909 in the House with the text from HF 2890 and passed it through Ways and Means.
- SF 2909 in the House version now contains Red Flags & UBCs. It passed the House in late April 2023 and is currently in conference committee.
HF 2890 is unlikely to move further – all House provisions were amended into the House version of SF2909 (see above).
Caucus Testimony on HF2890:
As always, check the current status of the bills in our Legislative Tracker.
Standalone Gun Control Bills
Several hearings have been held in the Minnesota House & Senate on gun control measures so far in 2023. Below are the bills that have had hearings and are “in motion.”
Elements of these bills have also been incorporated in at least some of the Omnibus bills, as highlighted above.
House
- HF 14: Universal Background Checks
- This bill was heard and passed in House Public Safety Committee on 2/3/2023.
- This bill was heard and passed in House Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Committee on 2/10/23.
- This bill is currently pending before the House Ways & Means Committee.
- Elements of this bill were passed in SF2909 (above)
- HF 15: Red Flag Gun Confiscation
- This bill was heard and passed in House Public Safety Committee on 2/3/2023.
- This bill was heard and passed in House Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Committee on 2/10/23.
- This bill is currently pending before the House Ways & Means Committee.
- Elements of this bill were passed in SF2909 (above)
- HF 396: “Safe” Storage
- This bill was heard and passed in House Public Safety Committee on 2/3/2023.
- This bill is currently pending before the House Ways & Means Committee.
- We do not expect this bill will move further in 2023.
- HF 601: Mandatory Lost & Stolen Reporting
- This bill was heard and passed in House Public Safety Committee on 2/3/2023.
- This bill is currently pending before the House Ways & Means Committee.
- We do not expect this bill will move further in 2023.
Senate
- SF 1116: Universal Background Checks
- This bill was heard and passed in Senate Judiciary & Public Safety Committee on 3/23/23.
- This bill is currently pending before the Senate Finance Committee.
- Elements of this bill were passed in SF2909 (above) and signed into law.
- SF 1118: Red Flag Gun Confiscation
- This bill was heard and passed in Senate Judiciary & Public Safety Committee on 3/23/23.
- This bill is currently pending before the Senate Finance Committee.
- Elements of this bill were passed in SF2909 (above) and signed into law.
Right now, we do not anticipate any other gun control bills will move in 2023.
As always, check the current status of the bills in our Legislative Tracker.
SIGN OUR PETITION TO STOP GUN CONTROL IN SAINT PAUL
AS A LAW-ABIDING GUN OWNER AND SUPPORTER OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT, I CALL UPON ALL MEMBERS OF THE MINNESOTA LEGISLATURE TO OPPOSE ANY AND ALL GUN CONTROL BILLS.
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