That gun violence polling data Humera just posted reminds me of an interesting thing I noticed in the Minnesota attorney general race. Violent crime rose across the state between 2019 and 2021, and both Democratic incumbent Keith Ellison and Republican challenger Jim Schultz have expressed concern about that. But Ellison has approached this as a gun-control issue — prosecuting the Fleet Farm chain of superstores for repeatedly selling firearms to straw men purchasers, for example. And Schultz has framed it as a reason to increase the number of prosecutors, get tough on crime and basically ignore everything else. Including gun control.
