MN Bill: 5-Year Gun Seizure, No Conviction, Zero Reimbursement

The Minnesota Legislature is moving to supercharge its two-year-old red flag law, and the upgrades read like a due-process demolition checklist.

Any rank-and-file officer responding to a call could petition a judge on the spot—no sign-off from a chief, no command review, no deliberation. One cop, one form, one weekend judge. That's all it takes to strip you of firearms you've never been charged for owning.

**Here's what the bill actually does.**

It stretches Extreme Risk Protection Orders from a one-year cap to five years. It forces judges to hear emergency gun-removal petitions after hours and on weekends—because apparently due process doesn't get to sleep. It expands who counts as a "family member" allowed to file against you. And it eliminates the requirement that the government reimburse you fair market value for the property it seizes.

Read that last part slowly. The state takes your legally owned guns and owes you *nothing*.

CBS Minnesota frames this as making the law "more effective." Translation: faster confiscations, fewer guardrails, and longer punishment windows for people convicted of exactly nothing.

The state's own data exposes how lopsided this already is. Judges granted petitions in 96 percent of cases. That is not a safeguard. **That is a rubber stamp.** And the system is scaling—petition filings more than doubled, jumping from 138 in 2024 to 314 in 2025. Supporters call that proof of success. Gun owners should call it a five-alarm warning.

Richfield Police Chief Jay Henthorne, leading the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association, is cheering the expansion and calling it "a tool that's being successful." Successful at what, exactly? Bypassing due process at record speed?

The NRA sent a letter to a Senate committee calling this bill what it is: a "gun confiscation" scheme. They're right. The original law passed in 2023 on a straight party-line vote when Democrats held total control. Now it's picking up Republican support in the tied House—which means the firewall is cracking.

**This is no longer a partisan abstraction. It is a bipartisan threat.**

Minnesota gun owners, the window to stop this is not at the floor vote—it is right now, in committee. Find your state representative and senator at the Minnesota Legislature's website and make the call. Tell them a five-year warrantless seizure with no conviction and no reimbursement is not a public safety tool. It is a political weapon pointed directly at law-abiding citizens.

The 96 percent approval rate tells you everything about where this system is headed. Watch this bill. Watch those Republican votes. And watch what happens in every other state capitol the moment Minnesota signs this into law—because they will be next.