Overview
- The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, affirmed a Ramsey County judge’s order that blocked enforcement of the binary-trigger ban while keeping the remainder of the 2024 omnibus law in place.
- A binary trigger is a firearm modification that fires one round on the pull and another on the release of the trigger, and plaintiffs said the ban was improperly added to a roughly 1,400-page tax-and-spending bill after a 2024 Burnsville shooting.
- The appeals panel relied on Minnesota Supreme Court precedent that favors severance as the proper remedy for single-subject violations, removing only the offending provision rather than voiding the whole statute.
- The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office said it is reviewing the ruling and may seek review by the Minnesota Supreme Court, a step that would keep the dispute alive in state courts.
- Gun-rights groups celebrated the decision, Democrats tried and failed to reinstate the ban in the Legislature, and a separate federal appeals ruling the same day upheld Minnesota’s permit-to-carry reciprocity rules, underscoring ongoing legal and political fights over gun policy in the state.