President Trump's Justice Department has sued Minnesota over state rules that force law-abiding buyers to wait weeks for firearms, a delay officials call intolerable under the Constitution.

The Department of Justice under President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against Minnesota on Thursday over the state's waiting period for firearm purchases. The suit followed a formal notice sent earlier to Democratic Gov. Tim Walz.

Breitbart News reported that Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon framed the delays as a direct burden on people who have already cleared background checks and still cannot take a gun home.

Minnesota's system gives residents two main paths to buy a handgun, and it also reaches certain rifles. One path is a Transferee Report. The other is a Permit to Purchase. Both routes hand the state weeks of control before a sale can finish.

Under the rules described in the Justice Department notice, a Transferee Report takes 30 days to win approval. For a Permit to Purchase, police get up to 30 days to grant the permit. Dhillon said residents can wait up to thirty days to buy a firearm, and that some citizens have been forced to wait nearly 60 days.

Dhillon says home defense cannot wait a month or more

A Justice Department press release that accompanied the lawsuit put the constitutional stake in plain terms. Dhillon pointed to Supreme Court language on the home and rejected the idea that a cleared buyer must sit idle while danger is already at the door.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon stated in the release:

"The Supreme Court held that the home is where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute. When a person needs to defend their home, they need to defend it now, not thirty to sixty days from now,"

She pressed the point further on permission slips after a background check has already been passed.

Dhillon also said:

"Law-abiding citizens do not need government permission to purchase a firearm, and forcing a citizen who has already passed a background check to wait up to sixty days to obtain a firearm is intolerable under the Constitution."

That is the core of the federal case as presented: the wait is not a minor paperwork hiccup. It is a state barrier that stretches from thirty days toward sixty for people the government has already screened.

Walz got the notice before the filing landed

On September 18, 2026, the Justice Department put Minnesota on notice that a lawsuit was coming. The letter from Dhillon went to Gov. Tim Walz and targeted the state's permit-to-purchase scheme for handguns and certain rifles.

The notice laid out the two purchase options and the built-in clock. Police get up to 30 days on the Permit to Purchase path. The Transferee Report path is described as taking 30 days for approval. The federal message was that those delays leave lawful buyers exposed while the paperwork crawls.

Walz has clashed with the Trump administration on other fronts, including after Rubio moved against a convicted offender Walz had pardoned. The gun suit adds another federal challenge aimed at Minnesota policy under his watch.

No Minnesota reply to the gun lawsuit appears in the available account. The filing itself is described as a Justice Department action against the state, with the press release carrying Dhillon's defense of immediate home protection.

Thirty days on paper, nearly sixty in practice

The numbers in the federal description matter because they stack. A thirty-day window on either track already means a full month between a cleared buyer and a firearm. Dhillon's letter and release go further: some people have waited nearly sixty days.

For a family facing a real threat, that gap is not abstract. The Justice Department argument is that the Constitution does not treat self-defense at home as a privilege that starts after a bureaucratic calendar runs out.

Federal officials cast the Minnesota process as a permission regime sitting on top of a background check. Once the check is done, the state still holds the transfer. That second layer is what the lawsuit calls out.

Walz later questioned whether a federal deportation he opposed made anyone safer, a separate fight that showed the same pattern of state leadership pushing back when Washington enforced a harder line. The gun case follows the same fault line: Minnesota rules versus a Trump DOJ that says the Constitution sets the floor.

Trump DOJ draws a bright line on lawful gun buyers

The suit is the enforcement step after the September notice. The Justice Department did not stop at a warning letter. It filed in court and put Dhillon's constitutional claims in a public release the same day the case was announced.

Named players are straightforward. President Trump's DOJ is the plaintiff side. Minnesota is the defendant. Walz was the addressee of the pre-suit letter. Dhillon, as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, supplied the public case for why multi-week waits fail basic self-defense needs.

The release ties the argument to Supreme Court recognition that defense of self, family, and property is most acute in the home. From that premise, a thirty-to-sixty-day hold after a background check is framed as more than inconvenience. It is described as intolerable under the Constitution.

In another recent clash, Walz deflected after the Trump administration deported a convict tied to his pardon record. The gun litigation fits a broader stretch of federal pressure on Minnesota decisions that the administration views as soft on public safety and individual rights.

Court venue, docket number, and the full complaint text are not detailed in the initial report. What is clear is the sequence: notice in mid-September, then a Thursday filing backed by a press release that rejects month-long delays for cleared buyers.

Trump and Walz have also traded blame over major security incidents affecting water systems, another reminder that disputes between this White House and Minnesota's governor are not limited to one issue. Firearms waiting rules are now in that same contested space.

Law-abiding Minnesotans who pass a background check still face a state clock measured in weeks. The Justice Department says that clock has to go because a home under threat does not wait for a permit office to finish its paperwork.

When government makes lawful gun owners sit idle for a month or more, it is not safety policy, it is a constitutional failure dressed up as process.