After over four hours of floor debate, the Minnesota House of Representatives on Thursday, Feb. 27, advanced a pair of gun control proposals for the second year in a row.

The first of the package, House File 8, passed the House 69-61 and would boost background check requirements before sales and transfers of guns, with some exceptions. The second, often dubbed the “red-flag” bill, passed 68-62 and would allow law enforcement to confiscate firearms if someone poses a danger to themselves or others.

Thursday’s tally wasn’t a surprise as Democrats have pushed the measures since winning the House’s majority in November 2018 — an electoral victory they say was largely driven by voters’ eagerness for action on guns. The House passed the same two bills last year as part of a public safety omnibus, but they were not taken up by the Republican-majority Senate. This year, the bills again face an immediate wall in the Senate.

Advocates and opponents for the bills on Thursday crowded the House galleries and held up signs outside the doors of the House chamber as lawmakers walked in. A sea of protesters in orange T-shirts chanted, “What do we want? Background checks. When do we want them? Now.”

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Republicans, on the other hand, say bills like HF 8 and 9 won’t prevent senseless gun violence. Minority Leader Rep. Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, argued that people who want to do harm will break the law to obtain guns anyway, and all that HF 8 and 9 would do is penalize law-abiding gun owners.

Instead, Daudt accused Democrats of using the bills as “a talking point for an election.”

“Democrats, you are failing the people in your cities who are worried about violent gun crime and that will be in your hands,” he said.

Those for and against the bills have bemoaned the heated partisan divide on guns, with supporters saying that lives are at stake, and detractors saying Constitutional rights are — both should be nonpartisan issues, they have argued.