President Donald Trump’s DOJ filed a lawsuit against Minnesota Thursday over the state’s waiting period for firearm purchases.
On September 18, 2026, Breitbart News noted that the DOJ put Minnesota on notice that a lawsuit was coming over the state’s permit to purchase “scheme” regarding handguns “and certain rifles.”
In a letter addressed to Gov. Tim Walz (D), Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Harmeet Dhillon, pointed out that Minnesota provides residents with two options for handgun purchases: 1) a Transferee Report, or 2) a Permit to Purchase. She noted that the former takes 30 days to be approved and those applying for the latter must give police “up to 30 days to grant the Permit to Purchase.”
Either way, Dhillon pointed out, Minnesota residents “wait up to thirty days to be allowed to purchase a firearm” and “some citizens have been forced to wait nearly 60 days.”
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That letter has now been followed up with a lawsuit.
A DOJ press release accompanied the suit. “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,” Dhillon said in the release. “Law-abiding citizens do not need government permission to purchase a firearm, and forcing a citizen who has already passed a background check to wait up to sixty days to obtain a firearm is intolerable under the Constitution.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. He enjoys reading Philosophy and novels by Jack Carr and Nelson DeMille. He is a lever action man in an AR-15 world. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
