"Yell a lot and act aggressive, but in a 'mostly peaceful', deniable way!"
That seems to be the lesson that the Minnesota left learned from this past couple of months of activism against ICE in the Twin Cities.
We'll see if it works in other areas.
Here's the deal: you'd never know it from watching media coverage from Minneapolis this last couple of months (or looking at the last 50 years worth of presidential election results) but Minnesota is a fairly purple state. It's congressional delegation is evenly tied, four Republicans and four DFL (the local variant of "Democrat"), and the state legislature is in a near deadlock, with a one-vote DFL majority in the state Senate and a 67-67 tie in the House.
And on few issues is Minnesota as "purple" as it is on guns; the state has a fairly solid carry permit law with fewer "felony traps" (places where inadvertently carrying a firearm in an otherwise legal manner becomes a crime) than most states in its legal weight class. Outside the Twin Cities metro, Minnesota is a gun-toting state; nearly 10% of eligible adults in the state have a carry permit, and hunters add a lot more armed Minnesotans. Minnesota's gun rights movement, led by the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, is big and effective not just at mobilizing Second Amendment voters, but at lobbying, fundraising and fighting and winning court battles (full disclosure: i have been a volunteer and donor to the Caucus, and I will be again shortly). They've managed to get bipartisan support to advance gun rights legislation, and mobilize opposition to bad legislation like the repeated attempts to ban "assault weapons" and "economy-size" magazines, even when the DFL has held the "trifecta", as in 2023-2024.
The legislative session in Minnesota is underway again, and the DFL is introducing bils that would ban most semi-automatic firearms (which means about 2/3 of total firearms) and magazines larger than ten rounds (it's hard to find a self-defense handgun with a magazine that small these days). They would turn a staggering number of law-abiding Minnesotans into felons the moment they go into effect - if they go into effect.
Rep. Emma Greenman says her bill "bans weapons of war" quoting polls to justify her constitutional infringements in this bill, which would turn hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans into felons.
— MN Gun Owners Caucus (@mnguncaucus) February 24, 2026
STOP THE BANhttps://t.co/8nMAzPMuJv pic.twitter.com/iiR3vDy4qV
As the Caucus notes, both bills are pretty much dead on arrival - the tie vote in the House, and in most House committees, means that without bipartisan agreement, nothing moves - and the Minnesota GOP has been 100% on Second Amendment issues for about 25 years now. The DFL knows this - they're bad at money, but they do count votes - and are doing this mostly to get votes on record to try to wedge the "suburban soccer mom" vote after the ghastly shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school last summer.
The bills are going nowhere.
And that seems to stick in some leftists' craws.
Earlier this week at the Legislature, the Caucus's new director of government relations, Anna Leamey, testified against the proposals. She shredded.Leamey's testimony drew the sort of response conservatives have come to tacitly expect when when the punch lands. A crowd of (let's be charitable) shrieking harpies descended on Leamey after the hearing. Rob Doar, who had Leamey's lobbyis job until recently (he now runs the Caucus's legal operation) observed.
Anna did an amazing job.
— MN Gun Owners Caucus (@mnguncaucus) February 24, 2026
Unfortunately, after the hearing, a small group of gun-control activists surrounded her and began berating her. One woman, wearing an Annunciation shirt, started screaming in her face and repeatedly called her a “smug bitch.”
That’s not civic… https://t.co/bAbfAbBXPi
The lesson is clear - Big Left has learned that noise and aggression seem to get results.
Which is all the more reason not to get intimidated, of course.
