(The Washington Times)—Two truckers have filed a lawsuit challenging Minnesota’s gun laws, saying the state won’t let them carry their firearms as they drive its roads, even though they’re legally licensed to publicly carry their weapons in their home states.
Minnesota does have reciprocity with 20 states, but doesn’t recognize permits from others, including gun-friendly states such as Texas, Florida and Georgia. Residents of those states must obtain a Minnesota-specific permit, leave their weapons inoperable while driving across the state, or risk prosecution for carrying.
The two truckers, Texas resident David A. McCoy II and Georgian Jeffrey M. Johnson Sr., said that tramples on their Second Amendment rights.
“Individuals do not lose their constitutional rights simply by crossing into another state,” the men said in their complaint. “In fact, there is no other constitutional right that Minnesota requires a visiting individual to first obtain permission before they may exercise a fundamental right.”
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in federal court in Minnesota and names Department of Public Safety Commissioner Bob Jacobson.
The Washington Times has sought comment from DPS for this story.
The Liberty Justice Center filed the lawsuit for the plaintiffs.
Loren Seehase, senior counsel at the center, said the two men regularly have to cross state lines because of their jobs, and their rights shouldn’t suffer for that.
Mr. McCoy and Mr. Johnson, in their lawsuit, said obtaining a Minnesota-specific permit is burdensome. They have to apply in person at a sheriff’s office, pay $100 and wait up to 30 days for a decision.
The permit, if granted, would be mailed to their home addresses so they would have to wait until they were next at home to collect the permit.
“Plaintiffs cannot afford the costs of firearm permit fees in every state they travel to or through. And it is too onerous a burden on plaintiffs’ Second Amendment right, and millions of other similarly situated Americans, to manage the firearm permit application process, requirements, costs, wait times and obligations for every state that they travel to or through,” the lawsuit argues.