A Mental Health and Cultural Crisis, Not a Gun Crisis
by Senator Nathan Wesenberg
Our state was recently shaken by an unspeakable act of violence at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. Families are grieving, children are traumatized, and we are once again confronted with the devastating consequences of ignoring truth in favor of ideology.
This tragedy demands that we stop pretending lies will heal broken lives. The shooter was a young man. He was not a girl, no matter how much he tried to live as one or how much others may have “affirmed” him in that falsehood. What he needed was adults willing to stand firm in truth and guide him through his mental health struggles, particularly his gender dysphoria, with real help and accountability — not affirmation of delusions.
By affirming confusion instead of treating the root issues, society is failing young people. We are normalizing instability, loneliness, and self-destruction. This is not compassion; it is neglect dressed up as acceptance. When hurting young men and women are left without real direction and their deepest struggles are affirmed instead of addressed, it does not lead to peace — it leads to despair and, too often, tragedy. We must demand a cultural shift: away from appeasing confusion and toward confronting the mental health crisis with honesty, courage, and truth. Our children deserve better than the lies of false affirmation.
We must also face the truth about gun control: it failed on this occasion, and it fails every day. Red flag laws did nothing to prevent this shooting. More restrictions would not have stopped this young man from carrying out his evil plan. What they do accomplish is stripping law-abiding citizens of the ability to defend themselves and their children.
“Gun-free zones” are not safety zones — they are hunting grounds. They create soft targets where killers know they will face little to no armed resistance. Evil thrives where good people are disarmed. The reality is simple: criminals do not follow laws, and gun control only punishes those who would follow them.
The answer is not more gun control laws or legislation by unscrupulous politicians. Our nation must return to God. America was founded on Christian principles, and if we do not return to a strong foundation, we lose order, peace, and hope for a better future. We must restore the foundation of strong families — a mother and a father committed to raising principled children. When the family breaks down, when fathers are absent, when God is pushed out of schools, homes, and public life, evil rushes in to fill the void.
What we need is not more laws, but more masculine fathers present in their children's lives, more loving mothers raising children in faith, and a culture unashamed to fight for morality and cast the devil into the ocean with a millstone tied around his neck. Evil will always find a weapon — the question is whether we will have the courage, under God, to fight back by restoring families, rebuilding communities, and standing for truth.