State of Minnesota v. Jayshawn Jarmell Jones

• Court: Court of Appeals of Minnesota
• Decided: August 4, 2025
• Docket: a241249
• Status: Published

Opinion

STATE OF MINNESOTA IN COURT OF APPEALS A24-1249

State of Minnesota, Respondent,

vs.

Jayshawn Jarmell Jones, Appellant.

Filed August 4, 2025 Affirmed Wheelock, Judge

Ramsey County District Court File No. 62-CR-23-1458

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

John J. Choi, Ramsey County Attorney, Anna R. Light, Assistant County Attorney, St. Paul, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Greg Scanlan, Assistant Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Ross, Presiding Judge; Wheelock, Judge; and Jesson,

Judge. *

SYLLABUS

Minnesota Statutes section 609.667(3) (2022), which prohibits the possession of a

firearm without a serial number, does not violate the Second Amendment to the United

* Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, serving by appointment pursuant to Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10. States Constitution as applied to appellant’s possession of a privately made firearm without

a serial number.

OPINION

WHEELOCK, Judge

In this direct appeal from the judgment of conviction, appellant argues that

Minnesota Statutes section 609.667(3), as applied to his possession of a firearm without a

serial number, violates the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution because

appellant’s firearm never had a serial number. 1 We affirm.

FACTS

Respondent State of Minnesota charged Jones with possessing a firearm without a

serial number in violation of Minnesota Statutes section 609.667(3). Jones waived his right

to a jury trial and submitted his case to the district court on stipulated evidence pursuant to

Minnesota Rule of Criminal Procedure 26.01, subdivision 4, so that he could obtain

appellate review of the pretrial ruling on his motion to dismiss the charge as

unconstitutional. We derive the facts from Jones’s stipulated-evidence trial.

On a chilly day in March 2023, St. Paul police officers responded to a call from

Regions Hospital reporting that a person was carrying a firearm inside the hospital. When

the officers arrived at the hospital, they encountered appellant Jayshawn Jarmell Jones

standing in the vestibule with a hospital security staff person.

1 This type of firearm is sometimes referred to as a “ghost gun,” which “is a common term for a privately made firearm that is not identified by a serial number.” State v. Vagle, 999 N.W.2d 909, 911 n.2 (Minn. App. 2023), rev. granted (Minn. Mar. 19, 2024).

2 Although Jones denied having any weapons during his conversation with the

officers, one of the officers patted Jones down and identified and removed a firearm from

the front pocket of Jones’s hooded sweatshirt. The officers then placed Jones under arrest.

The firearm was not loaded. It had a dark green slide marked with “Combat 19”

and a black frame marked with “Polymer80.” The firearm did not have a serial number

and appeared to be assembled privately from parts of other firearms or weapons-parts kits.

Later, an officer examined the firearm and concluded that it was safe to test-fire. The

officer discharged the firearm twice and determined that it was functional.

After being charged with possessing a firearm without a serial number, Jones moved

to dismiss the charge, arguing that the statute was unconstitutional on its face and as

applied. The district court denied Jones’s motion, concluding that a firearm without a serial

number is not within the normal and ordinary use permitted by the Second Amendment

and that, if it were, regulating firearms and requiring them to have serial numbers or other

identification is consistent with historical tradition. The district court next determined that

the firearm found on Jones did not have a serial number and that all reasonable inferences

drawn from the circumstances proved by the evidence were consistent with Jones

knowingly possessing the firearm, and it found Jones guilty of the offense. The district

court stayed the imposition of Jones’s sentence and placed him on supervised probation for

two years.

Jones appeals.

3 ISSUE

Does Minnesota Statutes section 609.667(3), as applied to appellant’s possession of

a privately made firearm without a serial number, violate the Second Amendment to the

United States Constitution?

ANALYSIS

Minnesota Statutes section 609.667 (2022) includes three clauses. The first clause

prohibits a person from obliterating, removing, changing, or altering the serial number on

a firearm; the second clause prohibits a person from possessing such a firearm; and the

third prohibits a person from possessing “a firearm that is not identified by a serial

number.” Minn. Stat. § 609.667. Jones argues that the third clause violated the Second

Amendment because the statute criminalizes the possession of a privately made firearm

and there is no historical analogue for requiring serial numbers on privately made firearms. 2

Appellate courts review the constitutionality of a statute de novo. State v. Fitch,

884 N.W.2d 367, 373 (Minn. 2016). The task of courts when interpreting a statute and the

United States Constitution “is to seek harmony.” United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680,

701 (2024) (quotation omitted). An appellate court’s ability “to declare a statute

2 Jones raises two additional arguments: first, that the effect of the statute is to require that all firearms have serial numbers and, second, that the burden of losing a firearm as a penalty was not contemplated in history. Although the state responds to these arguments, they are collateral to the issue presented and we need not reach them to decide this appeal. See Friedman v. Comm’r of Pub. Safety, 473 N.W.2d 828, 837 (Minn. 1991) (“We have been required to decide a difficult question in a specific situation and have done so. . . . It is unnecessary to speculate or decide issues not before us.”); see also Bondi v. VanDerStok, 145 S. Ct. 857, 869 (2025) (declining to address every foreseeable consequence of a decision related to weapons-parts kits because “this case does not require [the Court] to untangle exactly how far [the regulation] reaches”).

4 unconstitutional should be exercised with extreme caution and only when absolutely

necessary.” In re Welfare of B.A.H., 845 N.W.2d 158, 162 (Minn. 2014). When an

appellant brings an as-applied challenge, review of the statute is limited to whether the

statute impermissibly burdens the appellant’s right based on the facts presented by the case

at hand. Republican Party of Minn., Third Cong. Dist. v. Klobuchar, 381 F.3d 785, 790

(8th Cir. 2004).

The Second Amendment protects “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

U.S. Const. amend. II; see District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 599 (2008) (“[T]he

Second Amendment was not intended to lay down a novel principle but rather codified a

right inherited from our English ancestors . . . .” (quotations omitted)). This right “is

among the fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty.” Rahimi,

602 U.S. at 690 (quotation omitted). And the right enshrined in the Second Amendment

applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1;

N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 37 (2022).

“Like most rights, though, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not

unlimited.” Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 690 (quotations omitted). “At the founding, the bearing

of arms was subject to regulations.” Id. at 691. To determine whether a challenged law

infringes on a person’s Second Amendment right, the United States Supreme Court has

declared that the inquiry must be “rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by

history.” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 19. The government bears the burden to “affirmatively prove

that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds

5 of the right to keep and bear arms.” Id. The Supreme Court has explained the applicable

test as follows:

When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. The government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only then may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s unqualified command.

Id. at 24 (quotation omitted). The Supreme Court explained this test further, saying that

the challenged law “may not be compatible” with the Second Amendment if the law

regulates the right “to an extent beyond what was done at the founding.” Rahimi, 602 U.S.

at 692. However, while the law “must comport with the principles underlying the Second

Amendment, . . . it need not be a dead ringer or a historical twin.” Id. (quotations omitted).

Synthesizing the test, courts typically consider whether the conduct at issue is covered by

the plain text of the Second Amendment and then whether the challenged law is consistent

with the principles of the Second Amendment as identified by reviewing historical

tradition. Id. at 691. Therefore, to conclude that the statute criminalizing the possession

of a firearm that never had a serial number is constitutional as applied, we must be

persuaded that the statute is consistent with the historical tradition of firearm regulation as

it was understood at the time of the nation’s founding.

We begin by observing that, as to whether the Second Amendment’s plain text

“presumptively protects” a person’s conduct, Bruen, 597 U.S. at 24, our court recently held

that the Second Amendment does not protect possession of firearms that have had their

serial numbers removed, State v. Gaal, 21 N.W.3d 256, 270 (Minn. App. 2025). Our

6 opinion reached that conclusion by reasoning that firearms that have had their serial

numbers removed “are not typically possessed or commonly used by law-abiding citizens

for lawful purposes” and that “the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not

typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.” Id. at 269-70 (quotation

omitted). We are not aware of any caselaw from Minnesota or the United States Supreme

Court that applies similar reasoning to firearms that never had a serial number. Regardless,

we need not decide whether firearms that never had a serial number are categorically

covered by the Second Amendment because we conclude that the statute criminalizing the

possession of a firearm that never had a serial number does not infringe upon the principles

underlying the Second Amendment and, thus, that it is consistent with the original

understanding of the right to bear arms as covered in the Second Amendment. We therefore

affirm the district court’s denial of Jones’s motion to dismiss his charge.

To reach that conclusion, we begin by identifying the scope of the Second

Amendment right at issue, which is understood by looking at the text and history of the

United States Constitution “to help delineate the contours of the right.” Rahimi, 602 U.S.

at 691. The challenged statute cannot burden the Second Amendment right beyond what

was understood by the people at the time of the nation’s founding, requiring courts to apply

“faithfully the balance struck by the founding generation to modern circumstances.” Id. at

692 (quotation omitted). However, the test is “not meant to suggest a law trapped in

amber.” Id. at 691. Rather, a court must ascertain whether the challenged statute is

“relevantly similar” to those contemporaneous sources. Id. at 692 (quotation omitted). The

challenged statute need not be a precise match for the contemporaneous law but must be

7 “analogous enough to pass constitutional muster.” Id. (quotation omitted). This is referred

to as a “historical analogue.” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 30 (quotation omitted). If there is a law

from the time of founding that imposed “similar restrictions,” then that law is “a strong

indicator” that the challenged law or regulation is “within a permissible category of

regulations.” Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 692.

The state identified historical analogues in its brief, and we are persuaded by those

in addition to the historical analogues discussed in Gaal, each of which is relevant to this

inquiry: (1) an 1805 law that “required newly manufactured firearm barrels to be inspected

and permanently marked by an inspector” and (2) an 1830 law that required “newly

manufactured firearm barrels be tested, marked, numbered, and certified.” 21 N.W.3d at

270-71. The state also identifies George Washington’s requirement that his army’s

firearms be marked and laws from the British colonies in America and the first states in the

nascent United States that required a recording or census of all firearms in the area to easily

identify who owned firearms. United States v. Bradley, No. 2:22-CR-00098, 2023 WL

2621352, at *4 n.4, *5 (S.D. W. Va. Mar. 23, 2023). 3

Jones responds by arguing that these practices were intended to address theft, but

we are not persuaded that deterring theft was their only purpose or that this purpose

somehow negates that these practices are otherwise analogous. In Gaal, we considered

that, around the time of the nation’s founding, “states used markings to identify firearms

3 We are not bound by opinions of federal courts, but we may follow them to the extent that they are persuasive. Citizens for Balanced City v. Plymouth Congregational Church, 672 N.W.2d 13, 20 (Minn. App. 2003) (“Although not binding, these other federal court opinions are persuasive . . . .”).

8 and prohibited the erasure or obscuring of such markings” and concluded that this was a

historical analogue for laws prohibiting the obliteration of serial numbers. 21 N.W.3d at

271. These laws and practices demonstrate that the process of marking or otherwise

recording ownership of a firearm was a practice used by and known to people

contemporaneous with the nation’s founding, and therefore, the criminal statute under

which Jones was charged “is consistent with the principles that underpin our regulatory

tradition.” Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 692.

While the markings on firearms around the time of the nation’s founding may not

have been in the form of serial numbers, the markings identified firearms in a manner that

conveyed who possessed them, produced them, or inspected their parts. Additionally, these

analogues indicate that people reported their firearms to the local government. Therefore,

historical analogues exist that are “relevantly similar” to Minnesota’s prohibition of

possessing a firearm without a serial number, and they serve as a “strong indicator” that

Minnesota Statutes section 609.667(3) fits “within a permissible category of regulations”

for firearms consistent “with the principles underlying the Second Amendment.” Id.

(quotation omitted). 4

4 Our conclusion here is consistent with VanDerStok, a recent opinion from the United States Supreme Court in which it considered whether the Gun Control Act of 1968 allowed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “to regulate any weapon parts kits or unfinished frames or receivers” such that a firearm assembled from a firearm kit was required to have a serial number. 145 S. Ct. at 862-66. Although the opinion did not consider the Second Amendment, the Supreme Court ultimately upheld the regulation, concluding that the Gun Control Act authorized the ATF to require unfinished frames or receivers that are part of some weapons-parts kits to have serial numbers. Id. at 876.

9 Based on our inquiry into the historical tradition of the boundaries of the right to

keep and bear arms, we hold that Minnesota Statutes section 609.667(3), which prohibits

the possession of a firearm without a serial number, does not violate the Second

Amendment to the United States Constitution as applied to Jones’s possession of a

privately made firearm without a serial number.

DECISION

Jones was convicted of possessing a firearm without a serial number in violation of

Minn. Stat. § 609.667(3). We conclude that laws and practices that existed

contemporaneous with the nation’s founding are analogous to section 609.667(3). Because

it is “relevantly similar” to those laws and practices, section 609.667(3) is consistent with

the principles underlying the Second Amendment and does not infringe upon Jones’s

Second Amendment right as applied to his possession of a privately made firearm without

a serial number. Therefore, the district court did not err by denying Jones’s motion to

dismiss the charge of possessing a firearm without a serial number.

Affirmed.