The Minnesota Supreme Court created doubt in a ruling earlier this week over the viability of a decades-old state law that makes it a crime to possess certain firearms that lack serial numbers.

In overturning a lower court ruling, a majority of justices on the state’s highest court stopped short of invalidating a 1994 law entirely on constitutional grounds. But the split ruling could make it harder for prosecutors to bring the gun charges as they have in hundreds of cases per year.

Wednesday’s decision involves a man who, during a 2022 traffic incident in Fridley, was found to have a 9mm Glock 19 pistol lacking a serial number. Before his case could go to trial, charges against the man were invalidated by a district judge, then reinstated by the Court of Appeals and are now overturned by the state Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court’s ruling concluded the law’s definition of a serial number is too broad because it relies on a federal law that doesn’t require the gun markings. The state law was meant to help keep track of weapons as they circulate.

“We should exercise caution before criminalizing the conduct of a large group of Minnesotans who have never understood their behavior to be criminal,” the majority concluded in an opinion written by Associate Justice Paul Thissen.

A ghost gun that police seized from an organized shoplifting crime ring is on display during a news conference at the Queens District Attorney’s office in New York City, Nov. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)

Thissen said the numbers don’t mean much without a paper trail tying it to an individual, saying it makes those guns still untraceable.

He references ghost guns — those built through kits or parts rather than purchased fully manufactured firearms — as a source of concern. Still, the justice noted that Minnesota has no specific law on the books to regulate them.

Thissen writes: “In the end, the final decision on whether and how to regulate ghost guns rests with the Legislature.”

He was joined in the majority by Justices Sarah Hennesy, Anne McKeig and Gordon Moore. Justice Theodora Gaitas didn’t take part in deciding the case.

Chief Justice Natalie Hudson and Associate Justice Karl Procaccini dissented.

“By any measure, the vast majority of firearms in the country are not registered in any database,” Hudson wrote in a dissenting opinion. “But the lack of a registry does not mean that the statutory imposition of a serial number is a futile endeavor, as the court claims.”

The high court’s decision comes just a couple of days after the Minnesota Court of Appeals knocked back a similar challenge involving charges brought using the law.

The high court’s decision comes just a couple of days after the Minnesota Court of Appeals knocked back a similar challenge involving charges brought using the law.

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