King Phil Murphy of New Jersey tried to curb Second Amendment rights in the wake of the landmark New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen decision, which finally answered the fundamental questions concerning carrying firearms in public outside the home for self-protection. Do we have that right? In a 6-3 opinion, the Supreme Court said, “Yes.” So, his royal highness passed several anti-Second Amendment provisions in the Garden State, but the courts said, “Try again,” striking down most of the new laws, which tried to expand gun-free zones to curb carry rights essentially. Back to the drawing board, Mr. Phil.
Like most Second Amendment supporters, including myself, the right to carry outside the home was always accepted as the correct interpretation of the law, but that legal remedy was never official. And it took years to get that answer regarding carry rights. Woollard v. Gallagher (2013) and Drake v. Jerejian (2014) were some of the past cases that were unsuccessful in obtaining a writ of certiorari from the high court, but persistence paid off. These failed attempts got the pipeline to oral arguments going.
All 50 states now have carry permits, Illinois being the remaining holdout, being forced to recognize concealed carry in 2013. Yet, it’s a mish-mosh of “shall issue” and “may issue” regulations, the latter provisions adopted by blue, anti-gun states. Essentially, a Democrat-run state can deny someone their right to carry for arbitrary reasons, whereas “shall issue” carry states must give someone their permit within a specific time if they pass their background check and supply the proper paperwork regarding safety courses. In Virginia, it’s 45 days or sooner. May issue states also contained what we know as “proper clause” provisions, in which applicants had to offer evidence of being in serious mortal danger to obtain a carry permit. Failure to do so almost always ended with the application being rejected, which was why the law in New York was targeted regarding its constitutionality.
Bruen wiped all that away, with Democratic Party-dominated legislatures scrambling to curtail civil rights, bringing us to New Jersey. Our friend Stephen Gutowski at The Reload broke down a judge’s decision to scrap most of the state’s latest anti-gun measures:
Many of the carry restrictions New Jersey passed in response to last year’s landmark gun-rights ruling by the Supreme Court are unconstitutional.
That’s the decision released by U.S. District Judge Renée Marie Bumb on Tuesday. She found most of the state’s new “sensitive place” gun-carry restrictions, its automatic private property gun restrictions, and its gun insurance mandate can not be enforced. She ruled they were not backed up with the kind of historical tradition required under the test laid out by the Supreme Court in 2022’s New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.
“The Constitution leaves the States’ some measures’ to combat handgun violence. But what the Second Amendment prohibits the States from doing, and what the State of New Jersey has done here with much of Chapter 131, is to ‘prevent[] law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms,'” Judge Bumb wrote in Koons v. Platkin. “That is plainly unconstitutional.”
At the same time, she found many of the permitting requirements for both buying and carrying firearms are constitutional for the same reasons.
“[T]his Court finds that most of Chapter 131’s firearm permitting requirements are consistent with the Second Amendment,” Judge Bumb wrote. “This Nation has historically disarmed dangerous individuals or individuals who could endanger the public with a firearm. With some exceptions, Chapter 131’s firearm permitting scheme generally adheres to that historical tradition and aims to keep firearms out of the hands of those who could harm the public.”
The ruling is another win for gun-rights advocates and a loss for the states that have passed strict new gun-carry restrictions in response to Bruen. It is the latest in a series of rulings that have found New York and New Jersey’s new gun-carry restrictions unconstitutional. It also sets up a potential showdown at the Supreme Court over how far states can go in restricting where law-abiding adults can carry guns for self-defense.
Of course, the Murphy administration was devastated by the decision, claiming it to be a blow to public safety. It is an issue the Democratic Party shouldn’t discuss since they’re crafting policy that leads to more criminality and mayhem. Shall issue carry permitting processes is the law of the land. It’ll take some time, but eventually, all 50 states will have to adopt it one way or another.
