Minnesota Lawsuit Marks Another Front in Federal Efforts to Curb Second Amendment Infringement
The Department of Justice is once again protecting law-abiding gun owners as the Founding Fathers intended.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has sued Minnesota and the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, arguing that the state’s permit-to-purchase system and waiting-period requirements violate the Second Amendment.
The lawsuit, filed in September, alleges that Minneapolis and St. Paul impose unnecessarily long wait times on law-abiding citizens who have purchased a firearm—over 60 days in many cases. Minnesota law generally requires residents who purchase a firearm to obtain a permit and wait up to 30 days.
The DOJ contends that these unnecessarily long wait times have impeded the Second Amendment-guaranteed right to self-defense, creating a dangerous delay before law-abiding citizens could properly defend themselves.
"The Supreme Court held that the home is where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute. When a person needs to defend their home, they need to defend it now, not thirty to sixty days from now," said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.
The lawsuit is the latest example of a pro-Second Amendment shift in the federal government's approach to gun rights.
Second Amendment Restoration
In February 2025, President Donald Trump signed the Protecting Second Amendment Rights executive order, which called on the DOJ to review the current state of the Second Amendment and make suggestions for strengthening the people's right to bear arms.
As a result, the DOJ began to crack down on the Los Angeles Police Department for denying residents their rights. Out of thousands of permit applications, the vast majority remained unprocessed for many months—sometimes years—meaning law-abiding citizens couldn’t exercise their Second Amendment rights.
The Trump administration also took steps to roll back the Biden-era policies deemed unconstitutional. The administration replaced the Biden-era "Zero Tolerance" policy—which shut down gun stores at record numbers—with a compliance policy that aims to assist gun dealers and not punish them for minor clerical errors.
Just weeks into his second term in office, Trump abolished the Biden-created White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention—an unprecedented office in the executive branch that many Second Amendment advocates asserted was a backdoor foothold for gun-control groups to sway firearm policy.
"This gun control bureaucracy had no place in the White House, and it should never have been created," said Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
In December 2025, DOJ launched the Second Amendment Section within its Civil Rights Division to "ensure that such rights to keep and bear arms will not be infringed." By design, it identifies and corrects the undue burdens placed on the American people's right to self-defense by Democrat lawmakers across the United States.
The department has continued to protect gun owners—with the Minnesota lawsuit marking only its newest campaign.
In May, the DOJ filed suit against Colorado over its restrictions on certain firearm magazines, arguing they are in common use. Moreover, the DOJ has sued the state's capital, Denver, over its prohibition of certain semi-automatic rifles, including "AR-15-style" rifles.
In July, the DOJ filed a similar action against Virginia’s so-called "assault weapon" ban but did not take it further after local courts placed an injunction on the law.
During the same time period, the DOJ has sued California over its Glock ban and handgun roster and Maryland's Montgomery County over its firearm carry restrictions. The DOJ contends the laws unlawfully limited where licensed individuals could carry firearms.
Moving Forward
The DOJ's Civil Rights Division, alongside numerous pro-Second Amendment advocacy groups, are slowly returning the Second Amendment to the vision our Founding Fathers held.
With each lawsuit, America grows closer to a country where firearms are not the villains, but among the tools necessary to keep the villains at bay.
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