Record number of Minnesota gun permits issued for 2nd year in a row

For the second consecutive year, a record number of handgun carry permits were issued last year in Minnesota.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension on Tuesday released its annual permit to carry report, which showed 106,488 permits were issued in 2021 on 110,078 applications. That’s up nearly 10.3% from 2020, when a record 96,554 permits were issued.

According to the BCA, 176 permits were suspended last year, 40 were revoked, 1,165 voided and 1,627 denied.

More permits were issued in Hennepin County last year than any other county, by a wide margin. The five counties that issued the most permits in 2021 were Hennepin (16,888), Ramsey (7,467), Anoka (6,988), Dakota (6,744) and Washington (5,761).

The BCA’s report also lists the number of reported crimes by permit holders — 3,863 last year. That number is also the highest since the state’s Personal Protection Act was enacted in 2003. However, the percentage of permit holders who committed a crime remained on par with past years at 1%. Of those crimes, just over 2% involved the use of a firearm while the vast majority (over 61%) were DWIs or traffic offenses.

As of Tuesday, the BCA listed 387,013 valid gun carry permits in Minnesota. The state doesn’t track permits to buy firearms.

Click here to see the BCA’s full report.