Town hall attendees call for end to gun violence

About 450 people came together for a town hall in Plymouth on Sunday evening to grieve, remember and call for an end to gun violence.

U.S. Rep. Kelly Morrison, DFL-Deephaven, who represents Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District, including Eden Prairie and other western suburbs, held the session at Wayzata Central Middle School.

It was prompted by two acts of gun violence this summer: the Aug. 27 shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, which killed two students and injured others, and the June 14 attack that killed former House Speaker Melissa Hortman, her husband, Mark, and their dog, and left state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, injured.

The session featured four speakers: three mothers of children at Annunciation Catholic School during the shooting, and a trauma surgeon from Children’s Minnesota hospital who treated victims that day. Morrison and the speakers called for gun reforms aimed at preventing future mass shootings.

Morrison said the purpose of the town hall was to grieve as a community and confront gun violence in the United States.

U.S. Rep. Kelly Morrison speaks during a Sept. 21 town hall in Wayzata on federal gun violence prevention. Photo by Rachel Hoppe

“Gun violence is pervasive and destructive, and it affects everyone – our children, our veterans, people in urban areas, people in rural areas,” she said. “It’s difficult to overstate the ripple effect of gun violence through our communities and across the country.”

Audience members submitted questions on note cards, which were selected for a question-and-answer session. The Q-and-A followed testimony from parents of Annunciation students and trauma surgeon Trish Valusek.

Morrison said there is no single solution to gun violence but called for banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. She also cited ideas such as liability insurance for gun manufacturers, waiting periods for gun purchases, limits on how many firearms can be bought at once, and a national red flag law to temporarily block people at risk of harming themselves or others from obtaining a gun.

Carla Maldonado, a trauma therapist whose two children attend Annunciation, said she lives two blocks from the school. She recalled walking her kids there the morning of the shooting and later hearing gunshots from her kitchen.

“I ran toward the school. My heart pounded … as my feet hit the pavement, my mind flooded with images of my children being shot,” Maldonado said. “I experienced a level of fear and horror I never knew existed.”

Maldonado said her children have been greatly affected by the shooting – struggling to fall asleep, not wanting to be alone and asking their parents about why the shooting happened. 

“They got to come home on Aug. 27, but they are not the same children that I dropped off that morning,” Maldonado said.

Malia Kimbrell, a nurse and mother of two Annunciation students, said her 9-year-old daughter was shot in her back and arm. 

“You’ve heard the saying ‘misery loves company.’ Well, I feel the complete opposite,” Kimbrell said. “I don’t want any other parent or family to feel this misery.”

Kimbrell said gun violence can affect anyone, regardless of political beliefs or background. 

“Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, whether you hunt or don’t, whether you live in the city or the country, whether you own an assault rifle yourself or not, nobody should ever feel the panic and anguish that Annunciation felt that day,” Morrison said. 

Another parent, Stephanie Moscetti, has two children – a third-grade son at Annunciation and a 4-year-old daughter. Both have been traumatized by the shooting, though only her son was present during the attack.

Moscetti said her daughter accompanied her father to find her brother after they learned of the shooting. Her son was friends with Fletcher Merkel, the 8-year-old boy killed in the attack.

“There’s no section in the parenting book for how to parent through a mass shooting. My son was an honorary pallbearer at his friend’s funeral,” Moscetti said. “How is this our reality?”

Moscetti said both her children asked big questions in the aftermath of the shooting. 

“How is it that I’m answering questions every night from my 4-year-old about how the bullets hurt people? Why did the kids hide under the pews? And if the bad guy was so mad, why didn’t he just take a deep breath like Daniel Tiger says?” Moscetti said. 

Her son does not talk much about the shooting, Moscetti said, but he recently asked her how the shooter got hold of the gun. 

“My son assumed that purchasing the gun must have been illegal, to which I explained it was not,” Moscetti said. “His response was, ‘Wow, I bet everyone is behind us wanting to make these guns illegal,’ to which I had to explain to him that, ‘No, not everyone is behind you.’”

Valusek, who treated victims of the attack, said gunshot wounds are the leading cause of death among children ages 1 to 17.

“There is a saying in pediatrics that kids aren’t just little adults,” Valusek said. “They have a different physiology. You can’t treat them the same. The saying holds true for gunshot wounds.”

Kids are smaller than adults and do not have as much internal fat, so bullets can do a lot more damage to a child because children do not have the same protection adults do from insulating tissue, Valusek said. High-velocity ammunition only increases that damage. 

“I really hope I don’t need to give any more graphic descriptions of what a bullet does to a child’s body to get that point across,” Valusek said. 

Fifty-two percent of Americans supported a ban on assault weapons as of 2024, Gallup reported. 

Morrison said gun violence concerns people on both sides of the political aisle. 

“No one wants their child to be shot, so I think this is an opportunity for Democrats and Republicans to work together to pass meaningful gun reform and keep our kids and communities safe,” she said.

It is important for people to contact their representatives to encourage change on the federal level, Morrison said.

“Democracy works best when most of us are participating and are deeply engaged,” she said.