AUSTIN, Texas — The Liberty Justice Center (LJC) has filed a lawsuit on behalf of two truckers arguing that Minnesota’s failure to recognize other states’ firearm permits violates the Second Amendment.
“Minnesota’s refusal to honor other states’ lawfully issued firearm permits places an unreasonable burden on the Second Amendment rights of individuals like Mr. McCoy and Mr. Johnson who regularly cross state lines in the course of their work,” said Loren Seehase, senior counsel at the Liberty Justice Center. “There is no other constitutional right that individuals are prohibited from exercising until they’ve obtained permission from the state. No one loses their right to free speech or freedom of religion by simply driving from Texas to Minnesota—so why should they lose their right to self-defense? We ask the court to intervene and require the state of Minnesota to honor nonresidents’ Second Amendment rights.”
According to the LJC, the lawsuit aims to defend two truckers’ constitutional right to bear arms in public and carry them in their trucks across state borders.
David McCoy is a full-time, long-haul trucker who lives in the sleeper compartment of his eighteen-wheeler. He has a Texas License to Carry that permits him to bear arms in many states across the country.
Jeffrey Johnson is also a full-time, long-haul trucker, with both a Florida Concealed Weapons License and Georgia Weapons Carry License.
“Even though both men have lawfully issued firearm licenses, they are currently prevented from carrying firearms for self-defense while in Minnesota because the state prohibits carrying a firearm for self-defense, in public or in one’s vehicle, without a Minnesota Permit to Carry or a permit recognized by the state,” the LJC said.
Each year, Minnesota choses which states’ firearms permits it will recognize and which it will not. Currently, Minnesota excludes Texas, Georgia and Florida—along with 26 other states—from that list. Due to this law, neither McCoy nor Johnson can exercise their constitutional right to bear arms for self-defense due to fear of prosecution, which could jeopardize the credentials needed for their profession.
On Jan. 7, the LJC filed a lawsuit on McCoy’s and Johnson’s behalf, arguing that Minnesota’s firearm permitting law deprives nonresidents of their Second Amendment right to bear arms. The lawsuit asks the court to find the law unconstitutional and order the state of Minnesota to honor firearm permits issued by all other states.
McCoy v. Jacobson was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota on Jan. 7.
The LJC’s legal filings in McCoy v. Jacobson are available here.
Dana Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who has been featured in multiple newspapers, books and magazines across the globe. She is currently based in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.
Texas just can’t make up it’s mind can it. It boasts that it has the largest movement to secede from the union today and then turns around and demands that all states abide by federal rules. How does that work?
The MN statute reads: “The commissioner must annually establish and publish a list of other states that have laws governing the issuance of permits to carry weapons that are not similar to this section.”
The problem is that the BCA consistently include states for reasons other than their “laws governing the issuance of permits to carry weapons”.
MN’s statute was intended to recognize the majority of other states’ permits. That it doesn’t is because of the persistent refusal of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to administer the law as written.
The US Supreme Court spoke on carry permits in the 2022 case of New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen. That case says that carry of a defensive handgun is a basic civil right and therefore states like New York and California were banned from picking and choosing who gets to pack heat on a subjective “good cause analysis” basis.
Which often turned into “have you given enough cash to the sheriff’s re-election campaign?”
Bruen allowed states to have carry permit systems with training and background checks in place.
But that case did something else. At footnote 9 it listed abuses that courts weren’t supposed to tolerate regarding those permits. Two of those limits are “no excessive delays” and “no exorbitant fees” (to get carry rights via a permit).
This case in Minnesota seems mostly to be about the fees. In order to get the right to carry in the entire lower 48 states you’d need about 17 permits total. Most have their own training requirements and the average cost is well over $500. By the time you caught all 17 you’d have more training than most rookie cops and with travel and even cheap motels the cost would blast past $20,000.
If no one state can do excessive delays or exorbitant fees then neither can a coalition of about 20 once you include DC, Guam, Hawaii and so on.
We solved this problem back before WW2 when it comes to driver’s licenses and vehicle registration stuff via an interstate compact – not federal law and not the full faith and credit clause of the constitution.
The states and territories that still care about gun carry permits should have come up with an interstate gun carry compact once the Bruen decision landed. They could have made us score a carry permit from any state that has a 16hr training program and we’d be good to go nationally. The courts would probably have bought that and we could cope with it.
Instead we’ve got an interstate conspiracy to violate civil rights – our right to carry free of excessive delays and exorbitant fees.
And it’s not “Texas” pushing this – it’s two US citizens who happen to be from Texas.