Gun rights advocates win major challenge to N.J.’s tough concealed carry law.
A new law limiting concealed carry of guns in New Jersey suffered another defeat in federal court Tuesday as a judge ordered state officials not to enforce its tight restrictions pending a flurry of legal challenges from gun rights advocates.
The ruling means New Jerseyans with proper permits are free to concealed-carry handguns at beaches, public parks, bars and restaurants — places from where Gov. Phil Murphy and his Democratic allies in the state Legislature sought to ban firearms in an effort to curb gun violence.
Following a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year that found restrictive concealed carry laws on the books in states like New York and New Jersey violated the Second Amendment, Democratic leaders in the state fast-tracked a new measure that made it easier for citizens to obtain carry permits, but tightly limited where guns were allowed.
But in a
235-page ruling made public Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Renee Marie Bumb officially put its enforcement on hold.
Gun rights advocates declared victory, praising the decision as a “smackdown” of “draconian laws.”
Gov. Phil Murphy in a statement called the ruling a “poorly reasoned decision” that “sends exactly the wrong message as our nation confronts another devastating wave of mass shootings that have taken the lives of many across our country, including children.”
New Jersey’s top law enforcement officer, state Attorney General Matthew Platkin pledged to appeal the judge’s ruling to a higher court, a process that could take weeks or months.
Bumb, a President George W. Bush appointee, sharply criticized state authorities, writing that New Jersey had “failed to offer any evidence that law-abiding responsible citizens who carry firearms in public for self-defense are responsible for an increase in gun violence.”
Issuing a preliminary injunction against the law, she wrote that even founding father Thomas Jefferson “would have warned against” the law because it would disarm law-abiding citizens.
Platkin, the state attorney general, assailed the decision as “bad constitutional law,” writing in a statement that the court “now insists that we are powerless to protect New Jersey residents, and proclaims that the Second Amendment requires allowing guns at parks and beaches, in libraries, at public gatherings, in zoos, and even in bars, among other sensitive places.”
Those “sensitive places” are at the center of the dispute.
The law signed by Murphy in December listed an array of such locations where handguns could not be carried, prompting criticism from Second Amendment advocates that the measure included so many “sensitive places” that it was impossible for permit-holders to avoid violating it.
The legal challenge was brought by several concealed carry permit holders affiliated with New Jersey gun rights groups, including a man who obtained a permit after he was kidnapped and beaten in a bizarre case of mistaken identity.
The judge kept in place New Jersey’s new system for obtaining a carry permit, finding the state’s new requirements for firearms training did not conflict with the Second Amendment, which provides for reasonable restrictions on who can carry a gun.
A requirement that permit-seekers obtain insurance for their weapon was struck down, as well as a provision prohibiting people with permits from carrying their weapon on their person inside a vehicle.
Individual property owners are also permitted to prohibit guns from their property, a portion of the decision Platkin called “a silver lining” for gun control advocates.
“No one may carry a firearm inside someone else’s home, or into a business closed to the public, without the owner’s express permission,” Platkin said, citing Bumb’s ruling that kept that provision in place.
“And for everyone else — for retail establishments and other businesses open to the public — the owners can still make clear that carrying firearms is not welcome on their premises, just as homeowners can make clear guns are unwelcome on their lawns and driveways,” he said.
Alexander Roubian, president of one of the plaintiff groups, the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, said the group was “ecstatic Judge Bumb smacked down a majority of the discriminatory and draconian laws,” claiming that restricting access to firearms disproportionately hurt women and minority permit-seekers.
He noted Platkin and Murphy, who both have State Police protection details, “surround themselves with guns” while seeking to limit the public’s access to firearms.
