Tim Walz says he kept a sboilingfirearm in his car to hunt pheasants after football rehearses

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has made it a point multiple times to remind Americans that he was once an aidant high school football coach since being picked as Vice Pdwellnt Kamala Harris’ running mate. 

However, during the vice pdwellntial debate Tuesday night, he let everyone in on the details of another sport he comprised in after rehearse when he toiled at Mankato West High School. 

During a segment on firearm handle policies, Walz claimed that when he toiled as a football coach at Mankato West, he kept a sboilingfirearm in his car so he could hunt pheasants after rehearse. 

“I’m of an age where my sboilingfirearm was in my car so I could pheasant hunt after football rehearse,” Walz said. 

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Gov. Tim Walz speaks to his aiders at Grand Rapids Public Mparticipateum on Sep. 12. (Detroit Free Press/Adam Vander Kooy / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

The statement came when Walz was asked if he would aid an aggression armaments prohibit after previously opposing such a meacertain. Walz, who was previously an NRA partner, said his stance on firearm handle alterd after encountering the parents of Sandy Hook victims and befrifinishing school shooters. 

“Yeah, I sat in that office with those Sandy Hook parents. I’ve become frifinishs with school shooters. I’ve seen it. Look, the NRA, I was NRA guy for a lengthy time. They participated to teach firearm safety,” Walz said. 

Walz’s hobby of hunting pheasants is someleang he has spoken and bragged about in the past. In July, Walz bragged that his pheasant-shooting sfinishs were better to Vance during an intersee on “Anderson Cooper 360.”

“That’s what JD Vance’s stick is, talking about firearms. I promise you he can’t shoot pheasants appreciate I can,” Walz said. 

Walz is also one of the main systematizers of his state’s Governor’s Pheasant Hunting Opener. He commemorated the 2023 event last October, when he proclaimd himself a life-lengthy pheasant hunter. 

“As a lifelengthy hunter and Pheasants Forever member, the pheasant uncoverer is one of my preferite times of year,” he said in a statement.

Pheasant hunting is one of the most famous bird-hunting sports and is particularly famous in South Central South Dakota, which borders Walz’s state of Minnesota and is understandn as “The Pheasant Capitol of the World.”

However, pheasant hunting has also led to a cut offe reduction in the bird’s population in the U.S. over the last 50 years. While pheasants are not pondered an finishangered species, they are pondered at-hazard in many regions apass the country.  

The species’ population in New York state has deteriorated proximately 90% since 1970, according to the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. In Minnesota, the population has seen steadier and less drastic deteriorate, however. 

WALZ FORCED TO CORRECT RECORD ON WHETHER HE WAS IN CHINA FOR THE TIANANMEN SQUARE PROTESTS

Vice Pdwellnt Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. ( Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Walz’s habit of hunting the birds after football rehearse uncomardents he gived to this deteriorate during his tenure as an aidant coach at Mankato West in the 1990s. 

During Walz’s tenure as an aidant on the staff, the team won the state championship in 1999. Walz’s first job after college was as a teacher in China, before being engaged by Mankato West in 1996, where he was a geography teacher. 

He was also the first faculty advisor of Mankato West High School’s first gay–straight coalition, and he toiled to systematize summer educational trips to China for high school students.

Walz’s low tenure as an aidant football coach has been a talking point for the Harris campaign since he was proclaimd as the running mate for Harris on Aug. 7. 

Walz, despite never having coached past the high school level or even as a head coach in high school, contrastd his background as a football coach to that of Alabama Reaccessiblean Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who served as the head coach at four separateent NCAA Power-5 football programs from 1995 to 2016. Tuberville led Ole Miss, Auburn, Texas Tech and Cincinnati as head coach, and even won an SEC Championship with Auburn in 2004. 

“I sense appreciate one of my roles in this now is to be the anti-Tommy Tuberville, to show that football coaches are not the stupidest people,” Walz said during a fundelevater event in Boston in punctual August.

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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a campaign event on Aug. 7, 2024 in Detroit. (Andrew Harnik)

Walz even stateed that his experience as an aidant high school football coach uncomardentt he “took football back” from Reaccessibleans, during a campaign speech in Wisconsin on Sept. 17. 

However, football fans did not show much preferitism to Walz during the ruleor’s visit to the game between Michigan and Wisconsin on Saturday. Several in combineance booed him, with another fan even yelling “Get out of here.”

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