Minnesota prohibits the ownership, possession, or operation of a machine gun, trigger activator or machine gun conversion kit.¹

Minnesota does allow certain persons to own or possess a machine gun, including:

• Persons possessing machine guns that have been determined by the superintendent of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to be primarily collector’s items, relics, museum pieces or objects of curiosity, ornaments or keepsakes, and are not likely to be used as weapons, based on the date of manufacture, value, design or other characteristics of the weapons; or

• Federally-licensed dealers and manufacturers who have authority to buy, sell and/or manufacture machine guns and who either use the machine guns in peace officer training under courses approved by the Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training, or are engaged in the sale of machine guns to federal and state agencies or political subdivisions.²

Private persons, dealers or manufacturers owning or possessing a machine gun are required to submit reports of the gun to the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Dealers and manufacturers must, by the tenth day of each month, file a written report showing the name and address of the dealer or manufacturer and the serial number of each machine gun acquired or manufactured during the previous month.³ Any private person, within ten days after acquiring ownership or possession of a machine gun, must file a written report showing his or her name and address, official title and position, a description of the machine gun sufficient to enable identification thereof, the purpose for which it is owned or possessed, and any additional information as the Bureau may reasonably require.⁴

Federal law requires machine guns to be registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF), and generally prohibits the transfer or possession of machine guns manufactured after May 19, 1986.⁵

 See our Machine Guns policy summary for a comprehensive discussion of this issue. 

1. Minn. Stat. § 609.67, subd. 2. “Machine gun” is defined as “any firearm designed to discharge, or capable of discharging automatically more than once by a single function of the trigger.” Minn. Stat. § 609.67, subd. 1(a). A “trigger activator” is a removable manual or power driven trigger activating device constructed and designed so that, when attached to a firearm, the rate at which the trigger may be pulled increases and the rate of fire of the firearm increases to that of a machine gun or a device that allows a semiautomatic firearm to shoot more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger or by harnessing the recoil of energy of the semiautomatic firearm to which it is affixed so that the trigger resets and continues firing without additional physical manipulation of the trigger. Minn. Stat. § 609.67, subd. 1(d). A “machine gun conversion kit” means any part or combination of parts designed and intended for use in converting a weapon into a machine gun, and any combination of parts from which a machine gun can be assembled. Minn. Stat. § 609.67, subd. 1(e).[↩]
2. Minn. Stat. § 609.67, subd. 3.[↩]
3. Minn. Stat. § 609.67, subd. 4(b).[↩]
4. Minn. Stat. § 609.67, subd. 4(a).[↩]
5. 18 U.S.C. § 922(o); 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d).[↩]