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- By Levi Rickert
Opinion. As the school year resumes across the United States, so too has the tragic recurrence of school shootings. Since August 1, there have been five such incidents nationwide.
On Wednesday morning, a devastating attack unfolded at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. Just before 8:30 a.m., during morning Mass, a 23-year-old former student opened fire outside the school’s chapel. The shooting lasted only a few minutes but left lasting and tragic consequences: two students were killed, and 18 others were injured — including 15 students between the ages of 6 and 15, as well as three elderly parishioners in their 80s.
Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (White Earth Ojibwe) issued a statement that read: “My heart goes out to all those affected by the terrifying act of violence at Annunciation Catholic school this morning. I'm grateful to the law enforcement who responded. Please join me in praying for the victims and the families of the Annunciation community.”
The gunman, Robin Westman, was a former student of the school whose mother had worked at the parish until her retirement in 2021. The shooter arrived armed with three legally purchased weapons: an AR-15-style rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol. The shooter fired through stained-glass windows and then committed suicide in the school’s parking lot.
Authorities later discovered that the shooter’s weapons bore hateful inscriptions, and accompanying writings contained extremist, antisemitic and anti-Catholic rhetoric. The writings praised previous mass shooters and expressed violent ideologies.
The shooter used an assault rifle. Americans should not be shocked; heinous crimes are committed with assault rifles almost daily in this country. Assault weapons have been used to kill countless school children. Assault weapons have been used at numerous public events that have left hundreds of innocent people dead.
Gun violence in the United States is constant and devastating.
American society has become obsessed with guns, and the violence often bleeds over to innocent segments of society. We are bombarded with stories of another mass shooting across the country.
Schools are not safe from gun violence. Shopping malls and movie theaters are not safe from gun violence. Churches and synagogues are not safe from gun violence.
When the shootings occur, politicians are quick to say the victims and families of the victims are in their “thoughts and prayers.” The refrain means nothing because absolutely nothing changes.
Something needs to change.
Americans seem obsessed with assault weapons — military-style firearms designed not for hunting, sport, or home defense, but for maximum carnage.
These are weapons of war, and they have no place in our schools, our shopping centers, our places of worship, or our tribal communities.
Many Americans forget — or were never told — that there was a time when we tried to do something about this. In 1994, under President Bill Clinton, Congress passed the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, a law that prohibited the manufacture and sale of certain semi-automatic firearms and high-capacity magazines. Though the law had its flaws, it led to a noticeable decline in mass shooting fatalities.
A 2004 report commissioned by the Department of Justice found that the ban had led to a significant reduction in crimes involving assault weapons. In the decade the ban was in place, mass shootings were less deadly. After the ban expired in 2004, the number and lethality of these shootings surged.
Today, they’re tragically routine.
After Wednesday’s Minneapolis mass shooting, authorities disclosed the shooter was transgender. Some national politicians seized on this detail to blame the tragedy on mental illness – combined with the shooter being transgender. No factual evidence shows transgender individuals are more violent than cisgender individuals. In fact, they are more likely to be victims of violence at a rate of four times that of cisgenders.
These same politicians who were quick to blame the shooting on mental illness in the United States must address the fact that the Trump fiscal Year 2026 budget proposes significant cuts to funding for mental health programs through reorganization and consolidation within the newly created Administration for a Healthy America (AHA). The plan includes a 15% cut to programs formerly under the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
Reinstating a federal assault weapons ban is not about politics. It’s about protecting life. It’s about creating a future where Indigenous people, and all people, can gather without fear. Where ceremonies, classrooms, and community events don’t become crime scenes.
We’ve done it before — and it worked. We can do it again.
We must put people over profit. We must put community over chaos. We must have the courage to say: “Enough is enough.”
Our children deserve to grow up in a world where assault weapons belong in museums — not in the hands of civilians.
Thayék gde nwéndëmen - We are all related.
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