Overview
- The Department of Justice filed suit Thursday against the State of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul seeking a permanent injunction to stop enforcement of the state's firearm purchase waiting rules.
- The complaint challenges two parts of state law: a transferee-report process that triggers a statutory up-to-30-day delay and a permit-to-purchase route that allows local police chiefs or sheriffs up to 30 days to grant or deny a permit.
- The DOJ alleges that approvals in Minneapolis and St. Paul often exceed the 30-day limit, sometimes nearing 60 days, and notes that more than 93 percent of Minnesotans do not hold a carry permit and so face these delays.
- Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison denounced the suit as an attack on local police and the state's background-check laws and said the rules were passed by elected officials to protect public safety.
- A federal judge will now consider the request for a permanent injunction, a fast-moving decision that could change who can buy guns in Minnesota and shape national court battles over permissible gun regulations.