N.J.’s new gun restrictions run into federal court road block

A federal judge put on hold parts of New Jersey’s new firearm law that restricted where guns can be brought, even for people with permits to carry the weapons.

U.S. District Court Judge Renée Marie Bumb described the state’s law in Monday’s decision as an infringement on a person’s Second Amendment rights to carry a firearm.

“When a constitutional right becomes so burdensome or unwieldy to exercise, it is, in effect, no longer a constitutional right,” Bumb wrote.

She granted a request from three plaintiffs for a temporary restraining order against the state Monday, and reserved making a decision on a motion for a preliminary injunction.

“We are ecstatic that once again the courts have agreed with us that the people have the core and basic right to protect themselves the same way tyrants like Governor Murphy do,” said Alex “Alejandro” Roubian, president and managing editor of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, one of the gun rights organizations associated with the plaintiffs, in an email Monday.

The state’s law, signed by Gov. Phil Murphy in December, includes a list of locations it described as sensitive places where it would be a crime to carry a gun, even if a person has a concealed carry permit. Those places include libraries, museums, schools, colleges, nursing homes, hospitals, restaurants and bars where alcohol is served, entertainment venues, parks, beaches, in a vehicle unless it is unloaded and secured in a locked box, or on private property where the owner does not consent to possession of a firearm. Violating the law would carry a potential penalty of up to five years in prison.

“Plaintiffs cannot decipher what constitutes a ‘sensitive place,’ and so they have abandoned their constitutional right to bear arms out of fear of criminal penalty,” Bumb wrote.

The judge noted the court didn’t consider the potential social benefits of firearm restrictions. She solely looked at whether the state’s law could be permitted within the bounds of the Second Amendment.

The state’s law was written in the wake of a 2022 Supreme Court decision that struck down a New York statute that sought to make gun owners seeking a carry permit demonstrate proper cause. The decision voided New Jersey’s strict restrictions on carrying concealed firearms.

The temporary restraining order does not affect some of the law’s other provisions, including more stringent evaluation of whether an applicant should be allowed to buy or carry a gun, requirements for character references and firearms safety courses, and another requirement that people carrying guns in public have liability insurance.

Gov. Murphy’s office issued a statement Monday night calling the ruling an “errant decision” and said it would work to fully reinstate the law.

“While we are pleased that most of our concealed carry law remains in effect,” the statement said, “we are disappointed that a right-wing federal judge, without any serious justification, has chosen to invalidate common sense restrictions around the right to carry a firearm in certain public spaces.”

Steve Oroho, New Jersey’s Senate Republican leader, described the gun legislation as rushed and unconstitutional in a statement Monday.

“We look forward to the offending provisions of the law being permanently struck down,” he said.