The Trump Justice Department just told Minnesota that the Constitution does not come with a 30-day waiting room.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon has authorized a federal lawsuit challenging the state’s permit-to-purchase system for handguns and certain semiautomatic rifles. The warning went directly to Gov. Tim Walz and officials in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Dhillon put the issue in the plainest possible terms: “A right delayed is a right denied.” Her announcement included the Justice Department’s three-page letter and made clear that the Civil Rights Division’s new Second Amendment Section is prepared to take Minnesota to court.

Here is the announcement and the letter itself:

Minnesota gives residents two basic routes when they want to buy a handgun or a firearm the state classifies as a “semiautomatic military-style assault weapon.” Both can force a law-abiding buyer to wait.

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Minnesota’s official licensing guidance explains that a resident may apply for a permit to purchase through a local law-enforcement agency. The agency then runs background checks and decides whether the applicant meets the state’s eligibility rules.

Minnesota law gives officials up to 30 days to approve or deny that permit.

The alternative is a transferee report handled around the time of a purchase. Dhillon’s letter says that process can carry its own delay of up to 30 days.

Put together, the Justice Department says some Minnesotans have been forced to wait nearly 60 days before they can exercise a constitutional right.

A month-long delay reaches far beyond clerical inconvenience. A person who passes the required background checks is still being told to wait while the government decides when the Second Amendment becomes available to him.

The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, which has spent years fighting the state’s gun restrictions, called the federal challenge “long overdue.”

Breitbart News reports that Dhillon described Minnesota’s enforcement scheme as unlawful and cited the Supreme Court’s warning against licensing systems that use lengthy processing times to deny ordinary citizens their rights. The Justice Department has already authorized the complaint.

Federal lawyers are past the study phase. They are ready to file.

The letter also gives Minnesota a narrow off-ramp. Federal lawyers will consider briefly delaying the filing if the state, Minneapolis, and St. Paul immediately stop enforcing the challenged provisions and enter talks with the department.

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That means the choice now belongs to Walz and the local officials who administer the system: stop making eligible citizens wait weeks for permission, or defend those delays in federal court.

The Minnesota warning is part of a larger push. Just one day earlier, the Justice Department sued San Jose over a concealed-carry licensing fee that could climb to roughly $1,600.

The emerging message is hard to miss: Second Amendment rights cannot be priced or delayed into irrelevance by hostile jurisdictions.

Christopher Elliott connected the two actions:

For years, blue-state officials have treated the Second Amendment like a second-class right that can be buried under fees, appointments, forms, and administrative delay. The Trump administration is now testing those schemes against the Constitution instead of accepting them as the cost of doing business.

Minnesota can still avoid the courthouse. But it cannot avoid the question the letter puts squarely on the table: why should a peaceable, eligible American have to wait a month, or even two, for government permission to purchase a commonly owned firearm?

If Walz chooses to fight, the Justice Department says it is ready.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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