Capitol security focus moves to guns

[jdege]

https://www.eplocalnews.org/2025/08/26/with-the-low-hanging-fruit-already-picked-capitol-security-focus-moves-to-guns/
With the low-hanging fruit already picked, Capitol security focus moves to guns
Advisory committee members, two months after the assassination of a lawmaker and her spouse, want to revisit state law permitting guns in the Capitol.

At a hearing Wednesday, Aug. 20, of the Advisory Committee of Capitol Area Security, Sen. Bonnie Westlin, DFL-Plymouth, pivoted from kind words about Melissa and Mark Hortman and John and Yvette Hoffman to declare that, “No topic should be off the table. We need to fully explore every topic that impacts the security of the people who come to the building and that is going to include a conversation about weapons detection.”

[Lumpy]

Hennepin County Courthouse in downtown Minneapolis is a high-security area with barriers, checkpoints, screening and metal detectors; in other words a real "gun-free zone". I could see that for the actual capitol building itself; just not the restrictions on carry in the entire courthouse complex we had formerly, in which an entire public zone was restricted. Gun-free zones with no actual screening are security theater.

Also for what it's worth, the lawmaker and her husband weren't targeted at the capitol itself so it wouldn't have helped in that case.