Johnson v. Jacobson
A pending petition for certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court that asks whether a law-abiding American who already holds valid carry licenses from two states must obtain yet another license from a third state merely to keep a handgun available for self-defense while driving through it. Docketed as No. 26-255, the case pits Georgia resident and long-haul trucker Jeffrey M. Johnson, Sr., against Minnesota Department of Public Safety Commissioner Bob Jacobson in his official capacity. It tests how far states may go in treating the Second Amendment as a local privilege rather than a national right after New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022) and the Court’s 2026 decision in Wolford v. Lopez.
The petition was filed August 24, 2026. As of mid-September 2026 the Court has not granted or denied review; the case is slated for consideration at the long conference. The outcome, if the justices take the case, would affect the patchwork of reciprocity rules that currently force travelers to unload, case, or leave firearms behind when they cross certain state lines.
The Facts: A Trucker, Two Licenses, and Minnesota’s Border
Jeffrey M. Johnson, Sr., lives in Georgia and works as a full-time long-haul truck driver. His routes regularly take him into or through Minnesota, often on short notice and without a fixed itinerary. He holds a Georgia Weapons Carry License and a Florida Concealed Weapons License. Both are shall-issue licenses obtained after background checks and other statutory requirements. He carries a handgun because of the well-documented risks facing commercial drivers who live out of their trucks and transport cargo.
Minnesota law generally prohibits carrying a pistol in public or in a vehicle without a Minnesota permit to carry or a permit from a state whose laws the commissioner has deemed “similar.” Johnson’s Georgia and Florida licenses are not on Minnesota’s recognized list. To stay legal when he enters the state he must unload the handgun and secure it in a closed container, gunbox, or securely tied package. The firearm is then unavailable for immediate self-defense. Nonresidents can apply for a Minnesota permit in person at a county sheriff’s office, pay a fee (up to $100), and wait up to 30 days for a permit that is then mailed to their home address. For a driver whose work keeps him on the road, that process is impractical. Johnson has no disqualifying criminal history and would otherwise qualify for a Minnesota permit.
Minnesota’s commissioner annually publishes a list of states whose permitting regimes are considered similar. The list has fluctuated; at relevant times it recognized roughly 33 states and excluded Georgia, Florida, Texas, and others. Recognition is framed as a matter of interstate comity rather than a constitutional obligation.
Minnesota’s Statutory Scheme
Minnesota Statutes § 624.714 requires a permit to carry a pistol. The state operates a shall-issue system: sheriffs must issue permits to qualifying applicants, including nonresidents who appear in person. Subdivision 16 separately addresses reciprocity. The commissioner must determine which other states have “laws governing the issuance of permits to carry weapons that are not similar” to Minnesota’s and publish that list. Permits from recognized states function as Minnesota permits inside the state. Permits from unrecognized states do not.
Johnson’s challenge focused on the reciprocity provision, not a wholesale attack on Minnesota’s shall-issue requirement. He conceded for purposes of the litigation that the underlying permitting system itself could survive Bruen. His claim was that once a citizen has already demonstrated he is among “the people” entitled to bear arms and has obtained licenses from other states, Minnesota cannot condition continued exercise of the right on obtaining a third license or on the commissioner’s annual similarity determination.
Lower-Court Proceedings
Johnson (initially joined by another plaintiff) filed suit on January 7, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He sought a declaration that the reciprocity statute is unconstitutional and an injunction requiring Minnesota to honor valid licenses issued by other states. Judge John R. Tunheim found that Johnson had Article III standing but granted the state’s motion to dismiss on September 11, 2025. The district court accepted that public carry for self-defense is covered by the Second Amendment’s text. At Bruen’s second step it treated historical surety laws as an adequate analogue for Minnesota’s licensing-plus-reciprocity system.
Johnson appealed. A unanimous Eighth Circuit panel (Judges Shepherd, Erickson, and Grasz) affirmed on May 26, 2026, in Johnson v. Jacobson, 176 F.4th 1055. Judge L. Steven Grasz wrote the opinion. The court took a different analytical path from the district court. It held that Johnson’s challenge failed at Bruen step one: the reciprocity statute, “standing alone, does not regulate arms-bearing conduct.” Public carry is regulated by the general permitting requirement, which Johnson had conceded is constitutional. Reciprocity, the panel said, is merely an exemption some visitors receive as a matter of comity. Minnesota could therefore require every nonresident to obtain its own permit. The court analogized firearm licenses to professional licenses that states routinely refuse to recognize across borders.
The mandate issued in June 2026. Johnson petitioned for certiorari on August 24, 2026.
Questions Presented to the Supreme Court
The petition presents two questions:
1. Whether Americans must obtain a firearm license from each state to exercise their Second Amendment rights across the Nation.
2. Whether state firearm license reciprocity statutes that do not recognize firearm licenses issued by all other states are valid under Bruen.
Johnson’s counsel, Ryan Morrison of the Liberty Justice Center, argues that the Eighth Circuit’s framing lets states define the right out of existence. A state can ban carry without its permission, concede the ban is constitutional, then treat recognition of another state’s license as a discretionary favor. The practical effect, the petition contends, is that Johnson’s right vanishes at the Minnesota line even though he remains the same law-abiding person who lawfully carried moments earlier. The petition quotes Wolford v. Lopez (June 25, 2026) for the proposition that the Second Amendment has “the same meaning in all parts” of the country.
Minnesota’s position, accepted by the Eighth Circuit, is that the state is not regulating the right to bear arms at all when it withholds reciprocity. It is simply declining to waive its own (concededly valid) permit requirement. States have long controlled professional licensing and public-safety credentials within their borders; firearms, the state says, are no different.
Bruen, Wolford, and the Text-and-History Test
Bruen requires courts first to decide whether the regulated conduct is covered by the Second Amendment’s plain text. If it is, the government must show the regulation is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The Eighth Circuit stopped at step one by isolating the reciprocity clause from the permit requirement it modifies. Johnson replies that this is formalistic: the two provisions operate together to determine whether he may carry a loaded, accessible handgun. When he crosses the border he must disarm. That is regulation of arms-bearing conduct.
Wolford v. Lopez, decided 6-3 in June 2026 with Justice Alito writing for the majority, struck down Hawaii’s rule that licensed carriers needed express permission from private property owners before carrying on property open to the public. The Court emphasized that the right does not change meaning from one location to another inside the United States and that states cannot impose novel, significant burdens that lack historical pedigree. Johnson’s petition treats Wolford as support for a national, rather than state-by-state, understanding of the right to bear arms. Critics of the petition note that Wolford involved a default ban on licensed carry in a particular category of places, not a state’s refusal to honor another state’s license. The analogy is therefore imperfect.
Historical Analogues: Surety Laws and Traveler Exceptions
The district court relied on 19th-century surety laws. Those statutes typically required an individualized complaint that a particular person posed a threat, a hearing, and a finding of cause before the person had to post a bond to keep carrying. Minnesota’s scheme, Johnson argues, is different: it categorically disables an entire class of already-licensed travelers without any accusation or hearing, based solely on which state issued their papers.
Gun-rights groups that filed or planned amicus briefs (including the Second Amendment Foundation, NRA, and others) emphasize a different strand of history: traveler exceptions. Colonial and early-republic laws often treated sojourners and people in transit more leniently than local residents, recognizing that travelers could not easily obtain local licenses and that self-defense needs did not stop at county or colony lines. The Eighth Circuit did not meaningfully engage that history because it never reached Bruen step two. Amici have urged the Supreme Court at least to remand with instructions to consider the traveler tradition.
Minnesota and the courts below treat surety and licensing traditions as sufficient to justify requiring a local permit even from someone already licensed elsewhere. They also note that the Founding-era and Reconstruction-era sources contain no national reciprocity mandate for carry licenses, in part because systematic statewide licensing itself is a later development.
Stakes for Interstate Travel and Federalism
If the Court grants review and rules for Johnson, states that currently pick and choose among out-of-state permits would face pressure to recognize all valid licenses or to justify non-recognition with a tighter historical analogue. The decision would not necessarily abolish shall-issue permitting; Johnson did not ask the Court to do so. It would, however, limit a state’s ability to treat an already-vetted citizen as presumptively unlicensed the moment he crosses a line.
A ruling for Minnesota would leave the existing patchwork intact. Travelers would continue to consult reciprocity maps, obtain multiple licenses, or disarm when entering non-recognizing states. Commercial drivers, tourists, and people visiting family would remain subject to a “state-line lottery.” Supporters of the Eighth Circuit decision argue this is ordinary federalism: states retain primary authority over public safety inside their borders and are not required to outsource that judgment to Georgia or Florida.
No other enumerated right is commonly described as evaporating at a state line because the traveler holds the “wrong” state’s license. Free speech, free exercise, and the right to counsel do not work that way. Whether the Second Amendment is different because of its public-safety overlay is the policy and constitutional question the petition puts before the Court.
Current Status
The petition is pending. Related lower-court dockets show the district-court judgment of September 11, 2025, the Eighth Circuit judgment of May 26, 2026, and notice of the certiorari filing in late August 2026. Gun-rights organizations have publicly supported a grant or a GVR (grant, vacate, remand) so the Eighth Circuit can address traveler-exception history. The state has not yet filed a brief in opposition at the Supreme Court as of the latest public reports in early September 2026. The long conference in late September will determine whether the justices want full briefing and argument.
Johnson v. Jacobson is therefore not yet a Supreme Court decision. It is a live request that the Court decide whether the right to keep and bear arms travels with the citizen or stops at the state that issued the last piece of paper. The answer will shape how millions of licensed carriers plan trips, jobs, and daily self-defense for years to come.