Rep. Ilhan Omar wasted no time using Wednesday’s tragic shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis as a platform to demand sweeping federal gun control, despite the fact that the shooter was a Minnesota resident — and despite mounting evidence that undermines her core claims.
The horror unfolded during morning Mass, with children in attendance from kindergarten through eighth grade. The shooter, who had left behind anti-religious messages, was a local, not some out-of-state criminal trafficking weapons across state lines. Yet that didn’t stop Omar from immediately pivoting to a narrative that outsiders were to blame.
“In Minnesota, we have strong gun laws, but Indiana is not that far away from us,” she told The Weeknight, suggesting that guns from neighboring states pose a unique threat to her constituents. But the facts don’t back her up. There’s no indication that the firearm used came from outside Minnesota. In fact, all evidence suggests this was a homegrown act of violence — driven by hate, not interstate gun-running.
Nevertheless, Omar used the tragedy to argue that state laws are insufficient without federal backup. “There has to be federal laws that are introduced that safeguard life in this country,” she said. Her comments followed a familiar pattern: using emotionally charged events to promote national legislation that would apply sweeping restrictions to law-abiding gun owners across all 50 states.
Omar went further, arguing that the U.S. is “unique” in suffering from gun violence and blamed cultural attachment to the Second Amendment: “For the love of our gun culture, we have to have a greater love for our kids.”
But her comparison to other countries doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. A Reuters review found that school shootings are spreading across Europe, undermining Omar’s claim that nations outside the U.S. solved the problem after just one incident.
Meanwhile, according to data from the University of Washington, the U.S. does have a far higher gun homicide rate — but context matters. Nations like Germany and Australia also have significantly different social dynamics, enforcement models, and legal traditions. They also don’t have a Constitution that enshrines the right to bear arms.
The deeper issue here is Omar’s insistence on centralized, federal solutions for tragedies that are often local, complex, and deeply tied to culture, mental health, and social alienation. She treats the Constitution as an obstacle, not a foundation.
Meanwhile, the shooter’s documented anti-Catholic motivations raise another question: Why isn’t the national conversation centered around religious hate, security failures, and mental instability? Instead, it’s being rerouted to a standard call for disarming citizens — even when those citizens weren’t the ones who committed the crime.