Just a day after filing suit over San Jose, California’s outrageous $1,600 concealed carry permitting fee, the Justice Department is putting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul on notice that the state’s regulations on the sale of handguns and certain rifles are the agency’s next target unless changes are made.
A right delayed is a right denied. Minnesota cannot deny Americans the right to purchase commonly owned firearms with weeks-long waiting periods. The @CivilRights Division’s Second Amendment Section will challenge these violations of fundamental rights! pic.twitter.com/gF69uMB83x
— AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon) September 17, 2026
Minnesota’s scheme is truly bizarre. If you have a concealed carry license, there’s essentially no waiting period at all. If not, though, you basically have two options.
First, you can wait until 30 days after a “transferee report” has been delivered to your local police chief. The other option is to obtain a “transferee permit”, which is essentially a permit-to-purchase. As Dhillon points out, state law gives Minneapolis and St. Paul 30 days to issue that permit, so residents of the state’s largest cities are subject to that month-long wait either way. And according to Dhillon, the Twin Cities aren’t always meeting that 30 day deadline, with some applicants waiting two months or more for approval.
In her pre-litigation demand letter, Dhillon reminds Walz and the other officials that SCOTUS has already warned that “lengthy wait times” in processing concealed carry permit applications can render shall-issue licensing systems unconstitutional.
Based on Dhillon’s letter, I don’t know that DOJ is going to challenge the entirety of the permit-to-purchase scheme or just its built-in 30-day waiting period, but in either case a lawsuit could help render these permit-to-purchase schemes unconstitutional.
There are 11 states that currently have some form of a permit-to-purchase law in place, with two more adopting laws that have not yet taken effect.
One of those two state is Washington State, where the scheme is set to take effect on May 1, 2027. Earlier today Tom covered the recent attempt by anti-gunners to block NRA instructors from teaching the training course required under the permit-to-purchase law and how that effort has now imploded, but that small victory isn’t nearly enough to make the law acceptable to many Second Amendment supporters.
That includes Franklin County Sheriff Jim Raymond, who recently told The Center Square that the permitting scheme is downright “insane.”
Raymond questioned why the state needs another process for people who are already legally eligible to own firearms.
“It’s hard to respond to some of these stupid laws they try to pass nowadays,” Raymond said.
He argued that criminals who are already willing to break the law are unlikely to be deterred by another permitting requirement.
“People that aren’t law-abiding are going to figure out other ways to purchase firearms,” Raymond said.
Raymond said he believes the policy places the burden primarily on law-abiding gun owners rather than addressing people who use firearms to commit crimes.
“People cause problems, not weapons themselves,” he said.
The sheriff said he has supported some firearm-safety efforts, including classes offered through his own office. But he views the permit-to-purchase requirement differently.
Raymond said his concern is not limited to the training requirement. Instead, he objects to requiring someone to obtain government permission before making a purchase that he believes is protected by the Constitution.
I believe Raymond is correct, but so far the Supreme Court has been silent on the issue. In fact, the Court has turned away challenges to Maryland’s Handgun Qualification License, which functions as a permit-to-purchase scheme, as well as Delaware’s permit-to-purchase law.
In addition to the potential DOJ lawsuit, there is a lawsuit underway in Colorado, where a new permit-to-purchase scheme has gone into effect on the sale of gas-operated semi-automatic long guns, but that’s still in its early stages.
Washington’s permit-to-purchase law will face a legal challenge of its own as we get closer to the law taking effect next May. By then, though, other states may have implemented similar laws of their own.
A permit-to-purchase bill was introduced in Virginia this year, but was set aside until next session. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham spent a lot of her political capital trying to get an “assault weapon” ban to her desk and failed to do so. She’s term-limited, but Democrat candidate Deb Haaland has already embraced a gun ban and more, and I wouldn’t rule out a permit-to-purchase scheme in place of an “assault weapon” ban if it becomes clear that the Supreme Court is going to rule that outright bans are unconstitutional next year.
Honestly, I think a permit-to-purchase law is on the table in virtually every state where Democrats have or gain complete control of state government. As insane as it is, if there’s a blue wave election in November, tens of millions of Americans could soon have to fork over $100 or more to the state, undergo mandatory training, and even submit their fingerprints to law enforcement before they’re allowed to legally keep a gun at home. The DOJ’s potential lawsuit against Minnesota’s 30-day waiting period and the role that its permit-to-purchase law plays in those delays is hugely important, but the Second Amendment Section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division may have some new targets of opportunity in the coming months.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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