Applications for permits to purchase or carry firearms in, and around, Minnesota’s Twin Cities spiked in January, just days before Border Czar Tom Homan announced that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would begin to withdraw its Operation Metro Surge federal immigration agents from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
“Twin Cities gun sales have seen their largest year-over-year leap since the pandemic, with some cities experiencing double or even triple the demand compared to the same time last year,” according to analysis of city and county data by The Minnesota Star Tribune published Friday.
“The data, as well as interviews with gun store owners and gun safety instructors, indicate the increase is largely being driven by first-time buyers,” the Star Tribune reports.
Anti-ICE citizens objecting to federal agents enforcing federal law in their communities was one of the top two reasons for the increase in gun purchase and carry applications – but, Second Amendment supporters concerned about politicians’ anti-gun rights rhetoric was the other, a Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus spokesman told The Star Tribune.
In the state’s most-popular county, Hennepin, applications spiked 70% from the previous January. Well over half the applications were submitted by first-time buyers. Meanwhile, the Minneapolis Police Department reported that applications to purchase a firearm more than tripled.
A sampling of some of the Twin Cities’ largest communities shows that applications roughly doubled in St. Paul, Brooklyn Park, Woodbury and Maple Grove compared to January of 2025.
Across the entire state, “the number of people applying for a permit to carry nearly doubled from last year to this year,” WCCO-CBS Minnesota reports, citing Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehensions data.
Local gun shop employees interviewed by the station say that classes on permit to carry have doubled to the largest numbers they’ve experienced and that gun sales are up 30%.
