Hello everyone. I currently live in Illinois. My family and I are moving and Minnesota is one of the states we are looking at. We have narrowed it down to Montana, Minnesota, or Wisconsin. Illinois gun laws suck but aren't horrible. We can own ARs and other semiauto sporting rifles, we can possess standard capacity magazines and higher, we have carry now and even can have sbrs. We don't have registration or any bullshit. The only thing we have is the FOID card. Basically you fill out a form similar to the 4473 and are issued a card that is good for ten years. This card allows you to buy firearms and ammo (still need to fill out 4473 every time). That is really the only shitty thing. We also can't have suppressor which sucks. I'm not looking to move to another state that is more restrictive than my current state.

In MN, do you need any kind of permit for rifles, handguns, "assault rifles" ( better known as semi auto sporting rifles)? Any registration or stupid hoops to jump through to get a carry license? I've done a bit of looking around and it doesn't seem like there is any issues but I wanted to ask you all so I don't miss anything.

We are a very active family. We love being outdoors hiking, fishing, shooting , kayaking etc. We want to move somewhere that better resembles our life style. Any insight you can give me is much appreciated. Thanks.

ETA:  how are the politics in your state? Are dems likely to overtake your state in the near future? Here in Illinois the dems pretty much have everything on lock down. Our gun rights are safe for the time being because of the southern democrats. They generally vote against that nonsense.

Mn is pretty good on gun laws and getting better with the help of a very active gun rights lobby group

SBRs are good to go, as are supressors.
No SBS or non C&R machine guns

To buy ammo, just walk in and buy it, you might get carded for age verification

To buy handguns or "assault rifles" you need to either have a valid Carry Permit or a Permit to Purchase.
The permit to purchase is a bit of a left over from before the NICS system IIRC, and is free to obtain. Just head to your local police dept and fill out the form. There has been talk about getting rid of this as it is pretty pointless.

Politics are...ok here, our current governor is a POS but he is not running for re-election and there has been a definite move to conservatism outside of the MLPS/ST.Paul metro area.

Hope you choose MN, we need more gun nuts up here.

Oh, and the one HTF mod is a real tool.

I saw that

Only place i recall being carded for ammo is a wallmart, dont shop there often

Metro areas are screwed, but if you look at the last presidential election we came closer to going republican than we have in a VERY long time.
I know it aint much, but it makes me think that the iron rangers and farmers are starting to realize that the DFL is not the the "Farm and Labor" party that their granddaddys voted for.

Well.... if the shoe fits........

Thanks for the info so far. We are not city people. We are not complete rural people either. We like moderate size towns within decent travel times to bigger areas. We don't go to chicago at all so I don't foresee going to the twin cities. The only time I have been there was for hospital stuff and I couldn't wait to get out.  Nothing against the city. I just don't like being in them.

When you say you need a permit to purchase if you don't get a pro, what about ownership in general. I'd be. Moving with quite a few toys and probably wouldn't be buying anything for a while. Do I need any kind of permit to just own what I have currently? I'll eventually get my ptc but can't really say for sure when.

I am very active in our gun rights groups here so if I move there it would be the same. Thanks again

ETA: the part I hate most around here is you have to have your foid card on you at all times when handling or having any ammo or gun in your possession.

MN doesn't have anything like the IL FOID.  You can own whatever you like.  See above for the exceptions to that.  The permitting requirements are for purchasing not ownership.

The Democrat Party OWNS Minnesota & will for a long time to come.  The presidential vote was a fluke & a pleasant surprise.

The current Democrat governor is quitting after his current term & it's extremely unlikely that there will be a Republican replacement.  The only politicians with any name recognition are the Democrats.  Most people couldn't name a prominent Republican when the legislature isn't in session simply because the media only seems to bash them when they're in session or have an election coming up.  Otherwise they mostly concentrate on Trump bashing.

When we had a Republican governor a few years ago, Tim Pawlenty, most of the MNHTF member bashed him as a RINO which he most certainly wasn't.  For a MN Republican he was quite conservative.  He got us CCW.  His only real fault was giving a billion of our dollars to the Vikings after opposing the new stadium as a legislator.  It was a not-on-my-watch move on Pawlenty's part.

The main difference between IL Democrats & MN Democrats is that IL Dems are overtly corrupt, or at least much moreso than the MN Dems.  The MN Dems are passive aggressive & buy votes based on emotions & bullshit.

Here's an example of Democrat perfidy:  Minnesota has a Democrat led commission or board to govern every aspect of our lives, like the Minnesota Metropolitan Mosquito Control District & the Minnesota Sports Facilities Commission (MSFC).  Anyway, the MSFC had to have two chair people for some reason.  One was Ted Mondale, the son of the former MN senator, so it was quite obvious right there that the fix was in. The other was Michelle Kelm-Helgen who was the governor's former secretary.  They each got paid $160,000 a year for essentially doing nothing, going to a few meetings every year.

There was a big scandal, by MN standards at least, when it came out that Kelm-Helgen was found to have given free seats in the new Viking stadium suite to a bunch of her friends.  Few records were kept so when it came to light some of those people paid a few bucks back for their seats, something like $160 each when they were valued at $1200(?) each.  Anyway, Kelm-Helgen finally resigned a s a result of that scandal but not until she got her & some of her friends season tickets to every Vikings game on the 50 yard line.  She made a point of saying she was sorry but apparently she wasn't sorry enough to give them back.  Now she's faded into obscurity but her season tickets are still being used by her & her friends & family, actually for the first full season this year.

BTW, there is now one chairwoman for the MSFC & she's part time & she gets maybe $60,000 a year.

I guess you could check all the figures out to be sure that they're 100% correct but they're pretty close.

Minneapolis & St. Paul seem to be on a kick of "I'm more Communist that you are.  No, I'm more Communist that you are."  They keep running goofy politicians who are in a contest to see how much of our money they can give away.

As far a mid-sized cities, they are following as fast as they can.  Rochester & St. Cloud used to be real nice cities but now they have all the crime that the Cities do.  Duluth is probably leading the bunch toward full blown Communism, probably the result of the extreme Iron Range politics.

The geography of MN is very nice & you have quite a range of things to choose from.  There are the hills of SE MN, the great north woods, Lake Superior, 10,000 lakes, (actually there are more than 15,000), & probably the least appreciated part of the state, the prairies.

Also, there are a lot of things to see & do in The Cities of course.  There are a lot of good gun shows in the metro area.  Look at the MWCA.org website.

BTW, the in crowd uses the term "The Cities" not the Twin Cities.

Good Luck OP.

Nope, you only need to the permit to purchase if you are buying (handgun or "assault" rifle) PTC only if you want to carry.
Nothing needed to own or handle guns or to go shooting.

GOCRA is the big 2a group here. They were responsible for stopping all the post sandy hook laws dead in their tracks. Great group.

That kind corruption is infantile compared to Chicago. Those guys do shit in the open and nothing happens. Thanks for the response

Thanks for all the info so far. Much appreciated. Anywhere is cheaper to live than Illinois. We just got another property tax and income and gas tax hike. Our taxes here suck. Again, thanks for the help with my questions.

I read that Rochester is slipping. How is Winona or other areas in the southeastern area?

Indeed it is.

Good luck OP.

Thanks. We like it in MT a lot but it is a much further move. I practically live in WI 2 months out of the year for musky fusing tournaments. We have travelled to MN to see friends and such and looks beautiful and appears to be a good spot to consider as well. Probably going to come up for a weekend to see some places at the end of September.

This!
Let us know if you are coming up and you want someone to show you around.
MN has a lot to offer, especially on the hunting and fishing front.

One area you could check out is Brainerd. Getting to be some gun culture around there. A couple good training facilities, indoor range, lots of lakes.

Thanks for all the information. Doing a lot of research online. This is a big life decision and we want to make sure we do it right. Thanks for the suggestions. Every time an area is listed I am googling the crap out of it. I will let you all know when we are coming up for a visit and you guys can feel free to give us more recommendations.

I agree Duluth is too full of hipsters and liberal handholding.  That said, I do enjoy it here.  Plenty of things to do along the Northshore and not too far to be out in the middle of the woods.  Plenty of shooting opportunities though gunshops are a bit limited.

I agree. If I didn't live where I do now (SE Metro area), I'd be there in a heartbeat. I'm usually up there a few times a month as it is.

So we are going up to Wisconsin in a few weeks for a few days to look at some towns. We are stopping in LaCrosse and are probably gonna jump over to Winona in MN. We aren't making the full MN visit for a bit yet but we figured we were up there and might as well check across the border. Any other places near the border worth looking at?

Take a drive up 61 toward the Cities.  You'll go through a lot of smaller towns so you won't make great time, but if the purpose of the trip is sightseeing, it's beautiful drive.  I suggest that you stop at The Eagle Center in Wabasha.

Keep your eyes open for eagles as you're driving but there are a lot of turkey vultures out this year that can easily be mistaken for eagles at first glance.  They won't have the white head or tail of a mature eagle but you could see some immature bald eagles too, which superficially look like turkey vultures.

The last time that I was down there they Eagle Center had a golden eagle too.

Sorry for the clunky website.

Don't do it. Don't move here. It's not worth it. Nothing is worth living in Minnesota.

A post with no supporting details is of no value at all. Please try again.

Thanks for all that supporting info on your rational.  

I live in the north metro (a republican county) and I don't have an issue at all.  The state government does suck with the inner city democrats wanting to take away everything but that is state that has a bigger metropolitan area.  As long as there is GOCRA in the state we should be fairly safe with the gun laws.  I won't say completely safe as you never know.  

For outdoors activities Minnesota rates very well.  It has something for almost anyone.  Fishing, hunting, hiking, and camping are plentiful as are a bunch of other activities.

Why? You guys seem to be advancing your 2nd amendment rights. You have nice lakes and forests. I figure as long as we stay out of city we would be fine. Please clarify why we shouldn't. It would be helpful.

He does not have anything to add that is worth while.  If you can handle the winters then Minnesota is a great place to live in my opinion.  The winters are the deal breaker for most that don't like to live here.  I find it easier if you have outdoor activities in the winter to make it better.  I ice fish and sled with my daughter.

I live in the Duluth area, just outside of town. As long as you're not in the city limits it's a good place to be.  Most of the B.S. liberal politics end at the city limits around here.