Minnesota Supreme Court: Vehicle interior is a ‘public place’ if driven on public roads

The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the interior of a vehicle is a “public place” if it is driven on public roads, in a case involving a criminal charge over a BB gun found under a driver’s seat.

In May 2022, Kyaw Be Bee of St. Paul was charged with carrying a BB gun in a public place, a gross misdemeanor, after a Ramsey County sheriff’s deputy arrested him on suspicion of stealing a catalytic converter. Bee, 36, had a revoked drivers license and when the deputy searched the car, a BB gun was found under the front seat. Bee was charged because he “did not have a permit to carry a firearm in public.”

The case was initially dismissed in Ramsey County District Court due to lack of probable cause when Judge Leonardo Castro ruled that state law did not clearly define the interior of a privately owned car as a public place. A Minnesota Court of Appeals panel reversed that decision. Bee appealed to the state Supreme Court, which agreed with the Court of Appeals.

The opinion, written by Justice Anne McKeig, was joined by Chief Justice Natalie Hudson and Justices Sarah Hennesy, Gordon Moore, Karl Procaccini and Paul Thissen. Justice Theodora Gaïtas took no part in the case.

In trying to clearly define what exactly is a public place in relation to a person’s vehicle, McKeig’s opinion focused first on Minnesota legal statute concerning the transportation of firearms, explaining how the law allows for legal firearm possession in a vehicle: “A person may only transport a firearm in a motor vehicle under certain conditions, including in a gun case, unloaded and in the closed trunk of the vehicle, or with a valid permit.”

The Supreme Court determined that because this law provides concrete examples of how a firearm can be carried inside a car, it’s clear the Legislature viewed the interior of the car as a public place where regulations could be applied.

McKeig wrote in her opinion: “If ‘public place’ does not include the interior of a motor vehicle on a public roadway, then there would be no reason to specifically exempt certain instances in which a BB gun, rifle, or shotgun would be found in a motor vehicle on a public road.”

She also wrote that the Court of Appeals had adequately determined that “it may be unlawful to carry a BB gun, rifle or shotgun in a motor vehicle” in certain instances.

Just as importantly, the Supreme Court used the case to clearly define what constitutes a public place by focusing on the difference between a geographic place and the objects which occupy it.

McKeig cited Minnesota legislative language that lists specific locations that are not public places for the purposes of the law, such as “a person’s house, place of business, and land” plus gun shops and hunting land. All of these places are “immovable structures and land,” McKeig writes.

She adds that the language makes clear that a public place “generally refers to the geographic rather than spatial location.” For the courts, that means that when a gun is in a car on a public roadway, that roadway is the public place where it is illegal to carry the weapon, not the car using the road. That means a person’s privately owned car is a public place when it is on a public road.

That opinion, mixed with the fact that Bee never argued whether he was on a public road when he was pulled over, means the case will be sent back to district court for further proceedings.

This was the second recent ruling by the state Supreme Court concerning privately owned vehicles and guns in public spaces. In State v. Serbus, from 2021, the court ruled that a drunken driver in a car with a gun in the center console was carrying the weapon in a public space. That opinion, written by former Justice Paul Anderson, was noted in the dismissal of this case at the district court level because it didn’t clearly define public space.

Anderson had written that, “Because a vehicle is mobile and maybe driven in close proximity to people who are in public places, prohibiting an impaired driver from carrying a pistol on a highway would promote the protective purpose of the statute. But excluding an impaired driver from the reach of the ban would expose members of the public to greater danger.”