Twin Cities gun sales spiked as federal immigration crackdown intensified

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, a Minnesota Star Tribune analysis of city and county data found.

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 spike in gun sales came during the height of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement efforts in Minnesota, which culminated last month with the fatal shootings of two Minnesotans, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, at the hands of federal agents.

The federal government has announced that it will be withdrawing federal immigration agents in the coming days, declaring its Operation Metro Surge a success.

“Because of the ICE raids and the protests, we have seen an increase in business,” said John Monson, owner of Bill’s Gun Shop & Range in Robbinsdale, which saw a 40% increase in sales last month compared to January of last year.

In Hennepin County, the state’s largest by population, the sheriff’s office received about 1,400 applications for permits to purchase or carry firearms last month, a 70% jump from January last year. Well over half of the applications last month were from new buyers.

The Star Tribune found similar increases in gun permit applications between January 2025 and 2026 across a sample of the Twin Cities area’s largest communities.

St. Paul police saw more than a twofold increase in applications to 225. Ramsey County reported roughly the same amount of applications as last January, though gun rights advocates say that’s primarily due to bottlenecking after the county recently began requiring residents to schedule appointments to submit their applications.

Brooklyn Park, Woodbury and Maple Grove, three of the metro area’s largest suburbs, each reported roughly double the number of firearm applications this January compared to last.

Firearm permits and sales often spike amid social and political unrest.

Gun sales surged during the conflicts that followed the killing of George Floyd in 2020. Permit applications in Hennepin County jumped again following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. capitol and remained high through the summer crime wave that same year. More recently, sales went up following the assassination of DFL Rep. Melissa Hortman and the Annunciation Church mass shooting last year.

Last month’s increase appears to stand out, however, said Rob Doar, president of the Minnesota Gun Owners Law Center, a gun rights advocacy group.

David Taylor knows to expect higher gun sales following major political news. But Taylor, who owns Stock & Barrel Gun Club in Eagan, said last month’s spike took him by surprise.

“Nothing was really anticipated,” he said. “There’s nothing on the calendar, like an election or anything, that would anticipate this happening.”

Gun shops across the Twin Cities metro reported elevated sales compared to what they typically sell this time of year. They also said they’re seeing a lot of new buyers who don’t necessarily fit their typical customer base.

Taylor and Monson also said their gun safety classes for beginners started filling up last month.

“You take that basic class to get the introduction, to learn how to use a firearm,” Monson said. “We’ve seen an increase in those classes, which indicates that we have a lot of first-time buyers.”

But Doar said Minnesota has always been a bit of an anomaly when it comes to gun policy.

“We have a very strong history of pro-gun Democrats,” Doar said. “In fact, the permit to carry law of 2003, when it was passed, it was passed with a Democratically-held Senate.”

While a 2023 Pew Research survey found that most Americans cite self-defense as their main reason for owning a gun, a separate survey released that year by the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center at Rutgers found that Minnesotans cite hunting as their top reason. The Rutgers study also found that Minnesotans are more likely to own shotguns and rifles and less likely to own handguns compared to other states.

Gun shop owners also noted that many customers last month purchased home defense shotguns. State law only requires permits for handguns and semi-automatic weapons, not shotguns or bolt-action hunting rifles — meaning the increase in gun sales is likely higher than what the permit numbers show.

On a recent afternoon, one of the Twin Cities’ soon-to-be gun owners settled into a stall at Stock & Barrel Gun Club.

Taking aim, the 35-year-old Minneapolis resident fired off several rounds. When the paper target reeled in, she pointed to eleven new holes with excitement.

“Not too bad,” she said, laughing.

Wilson, who owns the speakeasy-style Volstead’s Emporium Uptown bar, said she never thought of herself as a gun owner. That changed, she said, after seeing videos of ICE agents tackling and pepper-spraying Minnesotans, as well as the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. She decided that she needed to be prepared to use a gun one day.

“I grew up in California, in Los Angeles, with the idea that a gun is violence, it’s gangs,” she said. “I didn’t grow up in the Midwest on a farm where I hunted quails, or something like that, and it was normalized.”

As a woman of color — her father is Black and her mother is Japanese American — Wilson is part of a quickly growing demographic of American gun owners breaking the mold of a distinction historically dominated by white males.

Wilson completed her class and is now preparing to submit her application for a permit to carry with Hennepin County. She’ll need to wait at least 30 days for her permit to be approved, but she already knows what she wants.

“I found a gun that I want, which is like a green glitter gun. It’s a Glock,” she said. “I think it’s cute. My green glitter Glock.”

Still, Wilson added, she is feeling conflicted.