Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has made a ban on "assault weapons" a top priority for his final year in office, and if he gets his way Minnesota gun owners who hang on to their banned firearms without registering them with the state could face harsher sentences than those convicted of a host of violent crimes, including domestic violence and sexual assault.
HF 3433 would make it a felony to manufacture, sell, transfer, and possess any "assault weapon," with a limited carveout for existing owners who obtain a "certification of ownership of the device" from the state's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and "appropriate law enforcement agency." In addition to the gun registration requirement, obtaining a certificate would also give police permission to "allow the appropriate law enforcement agency to inspect the storage of the device to ensure compliance" with state law.
HF 3402, meanwhile, would prohibit the possession of ammunition magazines that can hold more than ten rounds of ammunition. Current owners are not grandfathered in. Instead, under the bill's current language, those owners would have to do one of the following to remain in compliance with the law: (1) surrender the device to the appropriate law enforcement agency for destruction; (2) modify the device to render it permanently inoperable; (3) permanently alter the device so it cannot accommodate more than ten rounds; or 4) remove the device from the state.
The penalty for violating either HF 3433 or HF 3402 is a felony punishable by five years in prison and/or a $25,000 fine. As the MN Gun Owners Caucus points out, that's far worse than the existing penalties for a number of violent offenses.
The Minnesota House & Senate DFL want to give you 5 YEARS IN PRISON for owning a common firearm with their gun control proposals.
— MN Gun Owners Caucus (@mnguncaucus) February 23, 2026
Meanwhile:
🔹 Assault? 90 days.
🔹 Domestic assault? 90 days.
🔹 False imprisonment? 1 year.
🔹 Interfering with 911? 1 year.
So let’s get this… pic.twitter.com/3b7CbblM6E
Apparently, owning an AR is worse than rape.
— Rob Doar (@robdoar) February 23, 2026
AR-15 or standard-capacity magazine possession (HF3402/HF3433)= 5-year felony.
5th-degree rape (§ 609.3451, nonconsensual penetration) = 2-year felony.#mnleg https://t.co/NkP1rLZpM6 pic.twitter.com/Sd9jmAUfRi
These bills are expected to get their first hearing tomorrow, when the House Public Safety, Finance and Policy committee meets at 3 p.m. local time.
The House is currently tied between Democrats (technically, Democrat-Farmer-Labor) and Republicans, and under a power-sharing arrangement the chairmanship of committees alternates week by week. Last week a Republican representative held the gavel and was able to stop an attempt to gut a GOP bill increasing penalties for repeat, violent offenders and replace the original language with a gun ban, but tomorrow's hearing will be chaired by DFL Rep. Kelly Moller, who may try to engage in some legislative tricks to keep these bills alive.
The committee is equally divided between Republicans and DFL members, so as long as the GOP committee members all vote "no" on HF 3433 and HF 3402 the bills will fail.
So far no House Republican has indicated they're supportive of either of these bills, but Minnesota gun owners cannot afford to take Republican opposition for granted. The MN Gun Owners Caucus has been urging members and gun owners in general to flood their representatives offices with messages of opposition before today's deadline to comment, and hopefully lawmakers will be overwhelmed by the sheer number of constituents reaching out and urging them to vote down these ridiculously unconstitutional proposals.
Even if these bills do die in committee tomorrow, though, the Democrats have already tipped their hand. We know exactly what they want: to criminalize the exercise of a fundamental civil right. If that means putting gun owners in prison for refusing to let police search their homes without a warrant, or for continuing to possess a lawfully purchased firearm without a government-issued permission slip, that's quite alright with Walz and the vast majority of his fellow Democrats.
The Supreme Court has the opportunity to shut down attacks like these by granting cert to any or all of the multiple cases challenging magazine bans and prohibitions on so-called assault weapons that are pending acceptance or denial. The Court took no action on any of these hardware cases after hearing them in conference last Friday, and all five cases have been re-listed for this Friday's conference.
We shouldn't have to wait until someone is thrown in prison for their 20-round magazine before SCOTUS steps up and addresses this fundamental issue, but beyond waiting for a circuit court split to develop (which is likely going to happen when the Third Circuit issues its ruling on New Jersey's gun and magazine ban) it's unclear what is keeping the Court from granting cert, though one possibility is that the four justices who would almost certainly declare these bans unconstitutional (Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas) aren't positive that either Chief Justice John Roberts or Justice Amy Coney Barrett would join them.
It takes four justices to grant cert, but five to win a majority. Even if Roberts and Barrett aren't tipping their hands, I think it's time for the Court to grant cert and answer whether the most popular rifles in the country and commonly owned magazines aren't protected by the Second Amendment. So long as the Court holds true to its previous statements, these bans should fail. There is simply no historical precedent for bans on an entire class of firearms or limiting their firing capacity, and the idea that these bans address an "unprecedented societal concern" is completely unfounded. Mass violence has, sadly, existed as long as the United States has, but it hasn't been until recent decades that lawmakers have used that violence as justification to prohibit an entire class of arms or deny average citizens access to arms in common use for lawful purposes.
That's not enough to establish a national tradition in support of bans on "assault weapons" or large capacity magazines, but so long as SCOTUS maintains its silence, Democrats across the country will continue to punish legal gun owners with the lengthy prison sentences and exorbitant fines that are the heart of the gun and magazine bans in Minnesota.
