Minnesota’s Armed Citizenry Grows: A 15 Percent Rise in Carry Permits, a Record Crime Count, and an Early 2026 Surge

Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension

ST. PAUL, Minn. 

When the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension released its 2025 Permit to Carry Annual Report on March 3, 2026, the numbers did not shout. They accumulated.

A 15 percent rise in permits issued.
Nearly 66,000 new authorizations to carry firearms in a single year.
More than 375,000 valid permits now circulating across Minnesota.
And a record 5,647 crimes committed by permit holders, though fewer than 3 percent involved a firearm used in furtherance of a crime.

Individually, each figure tells only part of the story. Together, they sketch a portrait of a state recalibrating its relationship with firearms in an era of political volatility, immigration enforcement crackdowns, and sustained public anxiety about safety.

This is not merely a statistical update. It is a structural shift worth documenting carefully and soberly.

The Core Data: 2025 by the Numbers

According to the BCA’s annual report, Minnesota sheriffs:

• Processed 75,782 applications in 2025
• Issued 65,961 permits
• Issued 57,248 permits in 2024

That year over year increase of roughly 15 percent reverses the modest dip seen between 2023 and 2024 and places 2025 back near post pandemic highs, though still below the extraordinary surge year of 2021, when 106,488 permits were issued.

Permits Issued, 2021–2025

Year	Permits Issued
2025	65,961
2024	57,248
2023	65,215
2022	65,257
2021	106,488

As of March 2026, the total number of valid permits statewide stood at 375,551, according to the BCA.

That means roughly one in every fourteen Minnesota adults holds a valid permit to carry.

Geography of Issuance

The increase was not evenly distributed, but the state’s largest metropolitan counties again led in raw numbers.

The top five counties for five year permits issued in 2025 were:

1. Hennepin — 8,063
2. Anoka — 4,665
3. Dakota — 4,525
4. Washington — 3,579
5. Ramsey — 3,529

Together, those five counties account for a substantial share of Minnesota’s urban and suburban population, underscoring that permit growth is not confined to rural regions, as is sometimes assumed in national discourse.

Crime Among Permit Holders: Record Count, Stable Rate

The most closely scrutinized section of the BCA report concerns criminal offenses committed by permit holders.

In 2025, permit holders were linked to 5,647 crimes, the highest raw number recorded since Minnesota’s Personal Protection Act took effect in 2003.

Yet the BCA emphasized a key contextual metric: the percentage of permit holders who committed a crime remains approximately 1 percent, consistent with prior years.

The distinction between raw totals and rate matters.

As the total pool of valid permits grows, even a stable rate produces larger aggregate counts. A 1 percent violation rate among 375,000 permit holders yields more incidents than 1 percent among 250,000.

What Kinds of Crimes?

The data complicates assumptions.

• Less than 3 percent of reported crimes involved a firearm used in furtherance of a crime.
• Just over 55 percent were DWIs or other traffic related offenses.
• 24 percent fell into an “Other” category, including city ordinance violations, DNR infractions, and less common but more serious offenses such as stalking or riot.

This breakdown reveals that most criminal conduct involving permit holders does not stem directly from firearm misuse. Instead, it often reflects broader categories of criminal or regulatory violations.

Denials, Revocations, and Red Flag Orders

Sheriffs across Minnesota reported:

• 751 applications denied
• 49 permits revoked
• 261 permits suspended
• 1,331 permits voided

Of the revocations, nine were directly tied to Extreme Risk Protection Orders, commonly referred to as red flag laws. Minnesota’s ERPO framework allows courts to temporarily remove firearms from individuals deemed to pose a significant risk to themselves or others.

The relatively small number of ERPO related revocations suggests either limited utilization of the statute in the permit context or that ERPO subjects represent a small subset of total permit holders.

The January and February 2026 Surge

If the 2025 data tells the story of steady growth, the opening months of 2026 tell a different one.

According to local reporting citing BCA data, permit to carry applications jumped dramatically in January 2026. Applications reached 8,240, compared to 4,734 in January 2025, a nearly 75 percent increase year over year for that month.

The spike coincided with what federal authorities described as “Operation Metro Surge,” a heightened immigration enforcement effort conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minnesota.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Local firearm instructors and gun shop owners told reporters that training classes filled rapidly during this period. Advocacy organizations such as the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus publicly attributed the demand to community anxiety and concerns about unrest amid federal enforcement actions.

It is important to note what the BCA report itself does and does not claim.

The annual report presents application totals. It does not attribute motive. The linkage between immigration enforcement activity and permit demand comes from contemporaneous local reporting and statements by business owners and advocacy groups.

Correlation is observable. Causation remains interpretive.

Yet in matters of public behavior, perception can be as powerful as policy.

Minnesota’s Permit System: A Structural Overview

Minnesota operates under a “shall issue” framework. Applicants must:

• Apply through their county sheriff
• Complete certified firearms training
• Pass state and federal background checks

Sheriffs are statutorily required to process applications within defined timelines under Minnesota Statute 624.714.

The BCA aggregates annual data submitted by counties and publishes it as part of the Department of Public Safety’s oversight function.

This structure means that permit growth reflects thousands of decentralized local decisions rather than a centralized statewide directive.

Interpreting the Moment

A 15 percent increase is not an anomaly in isolation. Minnesota has seen cyclical surges before.

The extraordinary 2021 spike of 106,488 permits followed a year marked by pandemic disruption, civil unrest, and intense national debate over policing and public safety. Subsequent years normalized near the mid 60,000 range.

The 2025 increase returns the state to that equilibrium zone, while the early 2026 application surge suggests that Minnesotans remain responsive to perceived instability.

The state now sits with more than 375,000 valid permits in circulation. That is not merely a statistic. It is a civic condition.

The Larger Context

Minnesota’s firearm policy landscape has evolved in recent years. The legislature enacted measures including universal background check expansions and the state’s red flag law. Simultaneously, permit issuance remains robust.

This dual reality reflects a political equilibrium unique to Minnesota: regulatory tightening on one hand, sustained lawful carry growth on the other.

For policymakers, the 2025 report presents competing narratives:

• Permit holders commit crimes at a low and stable rate relative to their numbers.
• Raw crime counts are at a historic high.
• Firearms are used in a small fraction of permit holder offenses.
• Public anxiety appears capable of driving rapid permit demand spikes.

Each of these facts is verifiable. Each supports a different political argument.

A State in Statistical Tension

The numbers do not resolve the debate over guns in Minnesota. They illuminate it.

A state where one in fourteen adults holds a permit to carry is a state where firearms are normalized within the legal framework. Yet a state recording nearly 5,700 crimes by permit holders in a single year cannot dismiss oversight concerns.

The BCA’s 2025 report does not editorialize. It enumerates.

But enumeration, in a moment like this, carries weight.

Minnesota is neither retreating from firearms nor abandoning regulation. It is living in the tension between both.

And the data from 2025, followed by the early tremors of 2026, suggest that this tension is not receding.

It is consolidating.

For lawmakers, law enforcement, gun owners, and communities watching closely, the report offers something rare in the national gun debate: a detailed, transparent accounting.

The question now is not whether the numbers will be debated.

They will.

The question is what Minnesota chooses to do with them.

MinneapoliMedia