New Jersey Aims to Circumvent Carry Rights Gains with New Legislation

Readers and NRA members fresh off celebrating the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic Bruen decision [New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen] in June shouldn’t get too comfortable just yet—especially if they live in New Jersey. While the Court struck down a New York law requiring concealed-carry license applicants to justify their need to carry a firearm and prescribed a standard of review that lower courts must apply when resolving Second Amendment cases, anti-gunners are back at it with more proposed legislation to re-restrict carry rights in the Garden State.

A new bill—Assembly Bill 4769 (A.B. 4769)—reportedly designed “to protect our communities from threats to public health, safety and welfare posed by gun violence”—introduces (and in some cases reintroduces) draconian measures to circumvent recent wins by the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) and gun rights activists. It introduces restrictions on firearms and firearms owners while rehashing other formerly settled “dead” bills from previous sessions into one monster proposal to restrict Second Amendment freedom and access for hunters and sportsmen statewide.

Reported out of Assembly committee with amendments, A.B. 4769 was referred to the Assembly Appropriations Committee after passing by a vote of 3 to 2 on Monday and proposes the following measures:

• Increasing the formerly one-time fee for the Firearms ID Card from $5 to $50—10 times the current fee—and requiring card renewal every 10 years;
• Requiring psychological evaluations and home inspections for prospective gun owners;
• Upholding the unsubstantiated opinions of bureaucrats who are wholly unknown to the applicant in the decision on whether to grant a constitutional right to citizens;
• Flying in the face ofBruen by banning carrying in all but the most restrictive environments, including prohibiting carrying at all public places, on one’s private property without signage, in one’s vehicle and more; and
• Mandating liability insurance.

If these proposals sound familiar, it is because they’ve been cherry-picked from previous dead proposals, most recently in Gov. Phil Murphy’s 2021 budget proposal: which sought to:

• Increase the one-time fee for the Firearms ID Card from $5 to $100, requiring it to be every five years; and
• Increase the Gun Owner’s Permit from $2 to $50.

Sound familiar?

New Jersey already has some of the most restrictive laws impacting Second Amendment rights in the country, including requiring prospective firearm owners to file an application with local police to obtain a Firearm Purchaser’s Identification Card; mandating background checks through the New Jersey system for every firearm purchase; and requiring a separate and additional permit for each pistol purchased—in addition to the restrictive bans on certain types, makes and models of firearms.

Citizens looking for more information and who want to voice their opinion can visit the NRA-ILA website by clicking here.

As NRA-ILA noted when the Bruen decision was announced in June, “The NRA has been focused on promoting “shall-issue” protocols and eliminating “may-issue” laws since the late 1980s, and before today's decision, only six states and the District of Columbia still operated under “may-issue” statutes. The Supreme Court’s ruling today marks the end of these subjective, unconstitutional permitting schemes.”

Thank you, NRA-ILA, for protecting the rights of all law-abiding American gun owners as such restrictions cannot stand under the Second Amendment.

About the Author
Cody McLaughlin is a wildlife conservationist and conservative thought leader on public policy issues including hunting, fishing, gun rights, free-market tax and wage policy and the environment. He works as a GOP consultant for conservative political causes, managing clients’ digital communications and online presence, and serves on the board of the Alaska Outdoor Council, the NRA’s state association. McLaughlin is a former board member and lead spokesman of the New Jersey Alliance, helping to represent the state’s 1.2 million sportsmen in the political arena.