The Minnesota Supreme Court has reversed the Minnesota Court of Appeals decision on a man charged with possessing a privately manufactured firearm (PMF) without a serial number.
On February 14, 2022, Minnesota State Patrol (MSP) responded to the scene of a single-vehicle rollover accident near Interstate 694 and Highway 65 in Fridley, MN. When the trooper arrived on the scene, he found a car owned by Logan Vagle on its roof. Inside the vehicle, the trooper found an AR-15 magazine. When the trooper asked Mr. Vagle if he had any guns in the car, the Minnesota man admitted he did have a pistol.
After searching the car, the trooper found a privately manufactured firearm based on the popular Glock 19. Like most PMFs, the gun did not have a serial number. Police arrested Vagle and charged him with violating Minnesota Statutes section 609.667(3) (2024). That law requires firearms to have serial numbers but doesn’t directly address PMFs. There is no Minnesota law directly referencing homemade guns. The law is almost a carbon copy of federal law, which doesn’t apply to DIY firearms.
Mr. Vagle would fight the charge, stating that the trooper lacked probable cause for the search. His lawyers said that he was not challenging the constitutionality of section 609.667(3). Although he was not challenging the constitutionality of the law, the District Court raised the issue sua sponte. Sua sponte is a legal term meaning “of its own accord.” The Court ruled that the law was unconstitutionally vague as applied and dismissed the charge against the Minnesota man.
The State filed a pretrial appeal of the District Court’s order. In the Minnesota Court of Appeals, Mr. Vagle’s attorneys would argue that the Minnesota law only applies to firearms that are required to have serial numbers under federal law, which would exclude PMFs. The State argued that the law applies to all guns equally, regardless of whether they are purchased or homemade. The Court of Appeals would agree with the State and reverse and remand the Court’s decision to the District Court, stating that the law “plainly applies to any firearm.”
Mr. Vagle would appeal the Court of Appeals decision to the Minnesota Supreme Court. The Supreme Court would start by analyzing the law itself. It would note that Minnesota “does not have a general independent scheme requiring serial numbers to identify firearms.” The statute references federal gun serialization laws and appears to defer to those laws, such as the National Firearms Act (NFA) and the Gun Control Act (GCA). Neither of those federal statutes requires serial numbers for homemade guns. Because of these facts, the Minnesota Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals’ decisions and remanded the case back to the District Court, where it is expected to be dismissed.
The Supreme Court wrote: “We conclude that section 609.667(3) criminalizes possessing a firearm not identified by a serial number only if federal law requires that the firearm have a serial number. The firearm Vagle possessed is not such a firearm. We reverse the Court of appeals and remand to the district court.”
The case will have rippling effects across the State of Minnesota, where other defendants were charged with having firearms without serial numbers, including Matthew Walker Anderson, who is currently awaiting trial for target shooting with a homemade AR-15. That case has not been dismissed yet, but with the Minnesota Supreme Court decision, a dismissal is likely.
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About John Crump
Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people from all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons, follow him on X at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.
While this is great news for #2A advocates, a couple of issues are still alarming with this case. First, the defendant crashed & rolled his car. Where on God’s green earth would a search of the vehicle pertain to the accident investigation? Second, the defendant manufactured his own firearm. I’m fairly certain that a large enough group of Ammoland readers have done the same. But this LEO seems to have less than zero clue about firearms in general, much less any statute pertaining to them. So, what’s to say someone had a muzzleloader made from a kit in their vehicle… Read more »
More judges need to throw out gun control laws sua sponte.
Of course privately made weapons require no serial number. Nor permission to own or carry, as there is no authority with the power to require such. We the People expressly forbade our federal, state and local governments from having any power over our arms,