Attorney General Ellison appeals decision striking down Minnesota gun safety law to U.S. Supreme Court

Ellison defends state ban on 18-to-20-year-olds carrying loaded handguns in public

January 17, 2025 (SAINT PAUL) – Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced today that he is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court a lower court decision in Worth v. Jacobson, which struck down a state law limiting permits for public carrying of handguns to people 21 or over, to the extent it applies to Minnesotans aged 18 to 20. Attorney General Ellison is asking the Supreme Court to review the case to protect the safety of Minnesotans. 

“I’m committed to using all the tools I have to reduce gun violence and improve public safety, and today, I’m asking the Supreme Court to join me,” said Attorney General Keith Ellison. “I believe Minnesota’s ban on 18-to-20-year-olds carrying loaded handguns in public is constitutional and will lead to fewer senseless gun deaths across our state. I’m proud to keep defending this common-sense, gun safety law against special interests that put their ideology over your safety.” 

When the lower court struck down Minnesota’s law limiting public carry permits to people over 21, the court allowed the law to remain in effect until the end of the appeals process. As such, that restriction on public carry permits remains in place. 

In June 2021, the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, Second Amendment Foundation, the Firearms Policy Coalition, and three Minnesotans between the ages of 18 and 20 filed a lawsuit challenging Minnesota’s ban on issuing permits to carry loaded handguns in public to people under 21 years old. The plaintiffs argued that their Second Amendment rights were infringed by not being permitted to carry loaded handguns in public.  

In defending the law, the State submitted two expert reports attesting to the constitutionality of the law and its public safety benefit. The first report, authored by constitutional historian Saul Cornell, Ph.D., demonstrates hundreds of years of historical support for restricting gun use by those under 21. The second report, written by professor in empirical legal studies John J. Donohue, Ph.D., demonstrates that current data on gun violence affirms the wisdom in those restrictions. 

The federal district court granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs, applying the U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen. In its 2022 Bruen decision, the Supreme Court ruled that states must demonstrate that modern firearm regulations are consistent with the history and tradition of American gun regulation dating back to the Founding Era. The district court therefore focused its inquiry on the presence or absence of special permit requirements based on age in the 1700s. 

The state appealed the district court’s decision and argued the case before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in February 2024. In June 2024, after arguments had concluded but before the appeals court had reached a decision, the Supreme Court issued an opinion in United States v. Rahimi (Rahimi) that offered significant guidance to lower courts on how to apply the Bruen standard.  

In Rahimi, the Supreme Court clarified that states do not need to point to virtually identical firearm regulations from the Founding Era when defending modern regulations. Instead, states need to identify the principles underlying the modern regulations and demonstrate that they comport with the principles underlying the Second Amendment. 

Despite this new ruling changing what the state needs to demonstrate, the appeals court did not give Minnesota the opportunity to file supplemental briefing in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Rahimi decision. Nor did it engage in an analysis of the principles underlying the Minnesota statute. Instead, the appeals court affirmed the lower court’s decision to strike down Minnesota’s ban on people under 21 carrying guns. 

Attorney General Ellison is asking the Supreme Court to review this case because of the Eighth Circuit’s failure to meaningfully apply the Supreme Court’s new Rahimi decision to this case, and because ample historical evidence exists to support the constitutionality of Minnesota’s gun safety regulation in question.