MINNEAPOLIS — Last month, Minneapolis police officer Jamal Mitchell was shot and killed by a felon who shouldn’t have had a gun. 

Before that, in February, a similar scene played out in Burnsville, killing three first responders. In that case, the shooter, Shannon Gooden had asked the courts to restore his gun rights. He was denied. 

But what about the hundreds of other felons who asked for the same thing?

Over five years, 1,448 petitions to restore gun and ammo rights have been filed in Minnesota. They were originally stripped for convictions like drug offenses, assault, theft and terroristic threats. The courts approved more than half of them — mainly for people who had stayed out of trouble and requested to hunt or have personal protection. People like Troy Horning.

“It’s people that have been law-abiding. You know, grown up enough and understand enough the responsibility of carrying a live firearm,” Horning said.

WCCO went through case after case from 2019 through 2023. Of the rights restored, two people had a gun offense after — both misdemeanors.

In one case, the person had a rifle in a shotgun zone with an invalid permit. The other was for carrying a pistol while under the influence of alcohol. A third person was convicted of felony drug possession. 

Senior Judge Jerome Abrams has been on the bench, deciding if there’s good cause to restore felons’ gun rights.

“I think what you found is very consistent with just the nature of the crimes and offense in the community. The people that are getting their firearms back are not likely the people who are committing new serious crimes in the community,” Abrams said. 

It’s a similar story for felons who had their petition denied. A man who had his rights denied was later convicted of a violation after police found guns in his bedroom. A handful of people withdrew their petition or asked for a dismissal after being charged with crimes, some involving a firearm. 

We found convictions for things like assault, disorderly conduct, DWI and speeding for people who had rights restored and denied.

“Well, I think the data suggests that it is [working]. I think the data supports the fact that so far, the judicial evaluation or role in that process has been fairly good. I mean, it’s consistent. In other words, we’re not giving guns back to people who are out to commit offenses with firearms. It happens to be that some of the people who get their gun rights back commit other crimes, but they’re not using the firearms as part of it,” Abrams said.

What does the data show about felons in Minnesota, who are caught with a gun after being prohibited from having one? 

Tuesday at 10 p.m. WCCO shares the push to hold felons in possession accountable and talks with a mother who knows deep grief after her daughter’s life was taken by a felon with a gun.

We’ve all seen a big-name act or two get pulled from a lineup in the days leading up to a music festival, but this might be the first time the entire roster of headliners has been canceled.

Citing “unforeseen circumstances based on the present economic climate,” the organizers of northern Minnesota’s biggest rock festival, Moondance Jam in Walker, announced to ticket holders on Monday that all the national acts have been canceled on the schedule for their 33rd annual run, July 18-20 .

The fest is scheduled to go on with just local acts performing — and for now without refunds being offered.

Some of the names that have been axed from the schedule for Moondance 2024 include Creed, Switchfoot and whatever is left of the classic rock bands Foghat, Kansas, Blue Öyster Cult and the Sweet. Three-day general-admission tickets were priced at $200 — and actually are still selling at that price, according to the festival’s website.

Now being billed as Camp Moondance instead of Moondance Jam, the backup roster features Minnesota rock vet Johnny O’Neill, Mason Dixon Line (paying tribute to CCR) and cover bands such as Mallrats, A Hard Day’s Night, Mad Alice and more.

A festival representative answering the event’s general telephone line on Monday afternoon declined to answer ticket holders’ questions about refunds. The festival’s owner, Kathy Bieloh, later responded to questions from the Star Tribune but still left uncertainty over folks getting their money back.

“We are working through ticket refund details; there are a lot of moving pieces that we are working through at this time,” Bieloh said via email. “My hands are tied about saying most anything at this time.”

She admitted poor ticket sales were the culprit for the lineup cancellation.

Under its post announcing the lineup “changes” on Facebook, the Moondance team laid out a few alternative ticket options for current ticketholders besides refunds. Those include getting four free tickets for every ticket bought to this year’s festival or hanging onto this year’s tickets until next year.

“We understand the disappointment this news may bring to our dedicated supporters, and we share in those sentiments,” the post reads. “Our commitment to delivering an exceptional experience remains steadfast.”

The comments section under Moondance’s post was turned off so ticket holders could not sound off about the news. Fans made their disappointment known in other posts, though.

“Way to screw people over,” one fan, Brian Casey, wrote under a post by country music station 98.1 Country, which called Moondance’s announcement “shocking.”

“All we get are just a bunch of bar bands,” Haylee Kosobucki lamented under a post by Creed, which is adding a date in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on July 20 in lieu of the Moondance gig. Creed is also scheduled to perform nearer to the Twin Cities at Treasure Island Casino Amphitheater on Aug. 17.

Politicians projecting an image of themselves that’s not entirely accurate is nothing new. Try as she does with her always-on media presence, Minnesota U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar is apparently no different. This seems especially true when it comes to health care programs older Minnesotans rely on and reigning in large integrated corporations. This seems doubly evident when it comes to how President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act relates to the business practices of Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group.

Sen. Klobuchar misses few opportunities to tout her support, if not ownership, of the federal spending bill’s changes to Medicare. She and other progressives in Washington, D.C., promised it would drive down consumer prices and lower drug costs for seniors in Medicare. Despite such statements, it hasn’t worked out that way.

Not at all, actually. A full year after the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act,

polling

by the D.C. nonprofit

American Commitment

showed nearly 85% of older Americans said prices for goods and services had gone up, not down. Less than 11% said the costs of their prescription drugs had decreased. All told, nearly 80% viewed the costly legislation as a “failure.” Just ask older Minnesotans if their drug costs have gone up or down. Then ask the same about their Medicare premiums and out-of-pocket expenses. What they’re seeing with their own eyes does not comport with what Biden and Klobuchar are trying to sell us.

Klobuchar also fails to stress what few seniors probably know, that buried in the bill’s small print were provisions to immediately

divert more than $250 billion

in projected Medicare drug savings to other spending measures. This included billions in large subsidies paid to big insurers, tax credits for electric-vehicle buyers, and other questionable handouts unrelated to the Medicare program — largely doled out before the ink was dry.

Big insurers will also benefit from new government price controls that lower the costs of medicines they have to cover. Meanwhile, most of the drug pricing “savings” provisions sold to seniors had delayed, years-long implementation schedules.

Making matters worse, since passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, older Americans in Medicare Advantage have been socked with skyrocketing premiums and out-of-pocket costs imposed by big insurers and their pharmacy benefit manager middlemen. Then add

recent drug shortages

and warnings of new potential patient access restrictions — and

allegations of insurers overcharging Medicare billions

and

using AI to deny patients

care — and it seems clear our health care problems are likely getting worse.

Yet, even as these troubling issues and critical accountability measures have emerged, including bipartisan reforms to prevent big insurers and pharmacy benefit managers from pocketing massive drug-price rebates rather than passing them on to patients, Klobuchar has been largely AWOL. The same goes for conducting oversight on the handful of giant integrated health care conglomerates, including UHG, that control so much of the system. The latter is especially noteworthy considering she chairs the powerful Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee and is in a great position to do so.

Nowhere has there been more consolidation than in the health care industry, a massive sector of our economy that impacts nearly every citizen and consumer, young and old. Through acquisitions and a little help from government entitlement programs like Medicare and Obamacare, UHG has grown to be one of the biggest corporations in the world. In addition to being the biggest provider of Medicare Advantage plans,

it also owns

some of America’s largest pharmacy benefit managers, pharmacies, surgical centers, physician practices, surgical centers, and large home health companies, earning it north of $370 billion last year.

Additionally, UHG maintains a financial partnership with the supposed seniors’ advocate AARP, one that has now paid the organization over

$8 billion

in royalties and fees. The AARP, too, is notably quiet in calling for reforms for big insurers and pharmacy benefit managers.

Much of this came into play just a few weeks ago in Washington when Congress examined the far-reaching structure and practices of UHG in relation to the systemic cyberattack on health IT giant Change Healthcare. Even as Democrats, Republicans, the

U.S. Department of Justice

, and other agencies busily call out the potential threats such integrated health cartels pose, Klobuchar, along with the well-funded AARP, remain curiously inactive.

While some might not fault Klobuchar for having loyalty to the president or a large home-state employer, the glaring discrepancies between what she says, what she does, and what she seems to willfully ignore — when two of her supposedly signature reform issues collide — are cause for great concern. Older Minnesotans now expect visible action, and Sen. Klobuchar owes them no less.

Bob Johnson of The Villages, Florida, is a retired Minnesota trade association executive and the former president of the

Insurance Federation of Minnesota

(insurancefederation.org). He serves as an advisor to

Commitment to Seniors

(commitmenttoseniors.org), a project of

American Commitment

(americancommitment.org), a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., that’s critical of AARP.