In the wake of the Bruen decision, a number of states tried to enact laws that would make it virtually impossible to lawfully carry a firearm. Sure, you could get a permit, but it would be so difficult to carry a firearm and comply with the law that your gun rights would seem nonexistent.
When a state did that, though, they immediately found themselves faced with a lawsuit challenging the new law. After all, the Bruen decision expressly warns against such shenanigans.
One such state that ignored that warning was New Jersey.
An injunction was issued, and now gun rights advocates are urging the judge to leave that injunction in place.
Attorneys for Second Amendment advocates fighting New Jersey’s new gun law are urging a federal appeals court to uphold a recent ruling blocking most of the law from taking effect.
State attorneys failed to prove anyone would be irreparably harmed by U.S. District Court Judge Renée Marie Bumb’s order earlier this month affirming people’s right to carry guns in many places state lawmakers banned them, the lawyers wrote in two briefs filed Tuesday in response to the state attorney general’s appeal of Bumb’s order.
Attorneys representing New Jersey gun owners Ronald Koons and Aaron Siegel filed separate challenges the day Gov. Phil Murphy signed the law in December. The cases were later consolidated.
In two briefs totaling almost 60 pages, the attorneys repeatedly refer to Bruen, the U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down restrictions on gun carry, as a reason why the state’s bid to halt Bumb’s preliminary injunction is “flawed from start to finish,” as Siegel’s attorneys put it.
“Governments may bar the carrying of firearms in only ‘exceptional circumstances,’” Koons’ attorneys noted, citing Bruen. “The exception cannot become the rule.”
Of course, we need to remember that this is New Jersey. It’s not a state known for valuing the gun rights of its citizens. It was one of those states that was the reason the Bruen decision had to happen. Residents there couldn’t get a permit without a supposedly good cause, and general self-defense wasn’t accepted as a reason.
As a result, people’s gun rights only existed at the whim of a public official.
Since New Jersey can’t do that anymore, they want to make it as difficult as possible to carry a firearm.
The injunction, as it stands, keeps people from being arrested simply because they stray too close to some forbidden location, among other things. So far, the injunctions have protected law-abiding citizens, which is what laws are supposed to do, at least in theory.
Keeping the injunction in place makes perfect sense.
My hope is that the federal court agrees and leaves it right where it’s at, thus denying New Jersey officials the opportunity to jam up law-abiding citizens who just want to exercise their gun rights. Especially in the wake of Bruen.
What will happen? I know what I think should happen, but whether the federal court will agree with me or not remains to be seen. Regardless, even if the injunction doesn’t remain, the time for the law is limited and I think we all know it.
