Minnesota's New Red Flag Bill: 5-Year Seizures, No Pay, Any Cop

They weren't done.

The 2023 ERPO law gave Minnesota Democrats the framework. This expansion gives them the teeth—and they've already dragged enough Republicans along to clear committee in the tied House.

Here's what this bill actually does to you, in plain language.

**Orders stretch to five years.** Current law caps a judge-ordered rights stripping at one year. This bill pushes that to five years under vague "certain circumstances." No trial. No jury. Just a petition—and in 2025, judges approved **96% of them**. Let that number settle in.

**Any cop can file, on the spot.** Right now, only chiefs and sheriffs can petition for an ERPO. This bill hands that power to any officer at the scene—before you've been charged, before you've spoken to an attorney, before you even understand what's happening to you.

**Your guns. Their call. Your loss.** Current law at least required law enforcement to reimburse fair market value for seized firearms. This bill kills that provision entirely. They take your property. You eat the cost. No appeal on the price tag.

**Saturday-night orders.** Judges would be required to consider emergency petitions outside business hours. An ERPO can land on you at 10 p.m. on a weekend with zero recourse until Monday morning. By then, your firearms are already gone.

The NRA has already written to the Senate committee calling this exactly what it is: a gun confiscation scheme that punishes law-abiding Minnesotans without a single criminal charge being filed. **They're not wrong.**

DFL Rep. Cedrick Frazier of New Hope is the cheerleader here, calling it "legislation that has saved many lives." That's the sales pitch. Here's the reality: 314 petitions were filed in 2025—the majority by police—and judges waved through 96% of them. That's not a safety net. That's a rubber stamp on mass disarmament dressed up as compassion.

Richfield Police Chief Jay Henthorne, speaking for the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association, frames the any-officer provision as an "efficiency upgrade." Getting paperwork done faster at the scene isn't a public safety improvement. It's a faster pipeline to stripping your rights before you know what hit you.

**This is the play.** Normalize short-term orders. Then extend to five years. Then remove the financial penalty for wrongful seizure. Then let any officer file. Each step sounds reasonable in isolation. Together, they build a machine designed to make due process disappear.

The tied Minnesota House still needs a full floor vote—which means every Republican who backs this hands Democrats a victory they could not win alone. Watch the roll call. **Remember every name on it.**

Minnesota gun owners are watching their already-thin ERPO protections get carved away in real time. The five-year seizure window alone should set off alarms for every law-abiding gun owner in the state. Contact your Minnesota House rep right now—especially if they caucus Republican—and make it crystal clear: a vote for this bill is a vote against the Second Amendment. Find your rep at leg.mn.gov.

This one isn't over. But it will be if gun owners stay quiet.