Today in Minneapolis a gunman opened fire during a back-to-school Mass, killing two children and injuring seventeen others. Senator Amy Klobuchar, who represents Minnesota, tried to put words to a loss that feels impossible to process while speaking with CNN.
The shooting happened Wednesday morning just as students, teachers, and parishioners were preparing for what was meant to be the first Mass of the school year. According to police, the attacker was 23-year-old Robin Westman. He was armed with mulitple firearms, and he barricaded the doors to the building before opening fire on the congregation. He later died of a self-inflicted gunshot.
Klobuchar, who spoke with families and former constituents directly affected, said in her interview that the attack put these children in a space in which no one should ever have to exist. “Your heart just wants to break,” Klobuchar said. “These are kids that should have been learning with their friends, playing on the playground. Instead, they were praying in a church when they were gunned down.”
The senator’s remarks set aside the “thoughts and prayers” rhetoric of previous mass shootings. “Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying. If that doesn’t move us to act, I don’t know what will.”
Klobuchar pointed to a familiar but unresolved debate over gun laws, saying there are “policy things we can do that would still preserve people’s rights” while also preventing tragedies like this one. “At some point, when you see innocent kids praying in a church and they get gunned down by a madman, you have to step back and think, what can we do better?” she said.
For Klobuchar, the horror is personal. She said, “There’s the immediate death, but then it’s a whole community, and ultimately it’s an entire nation that has to grapple with the fact that we have too many guns out there right now.”
As investigators continue piecing together a motive, the senator urged the country not to let the conversation fade. “If a bunch of kids praying in a church and shot down through the window isn’t enough to make people move,” she said, “I just don’t know what is anymore.”
