(TheLastPatriotNews.com) – Gun rights defenders have scored a huge legal victory after a federal judge declared unconstitutional most of New Jersey’s concealed carry law that banned licensed gun owners from bringing firearms into government buildings and libraries.
New Jersey’s state bill A4769 stipulates that much of the state is a “sensitive place,” therefore banning the concealed carry of firearms in many locations, even for residents with permits.
Most of the law has now been blocked with a preliminary injunction by the chief judge for the US District Court for the District of New Jersey, Renée Marie Bumb, an appointee of President George W. Bush, Newsmax reports.
The state law was adopted to react to the June 2022 ruling of the US Supreme Court in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen.
In that case, the 6-3 conservative majority ruled unconstitutional a 1911 New York law that had obliged gun owners to demonstrate “proper cause” to be able to get a concealed carry permit.
The United States Supreme Court thus declared that being able to carry a gun in public was a constitutional right for Americans under the Second Amendment.
“The Second Amendment’s right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees,” Bumb wrote in the 230-page ruling.
“That does not mean, however, that the right is ‘unlimited.’ 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 [its law] is to prevent law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms,” she elaborated.
“That is plainly unconstitutional,” the judge concluded.
The lawsuit against New Jersey’s concealed carry law was filed on December 22 by the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs several hours after the state’s Democrat Governor Phil Murphy had signed it.
In January, Bumb had issued a temporary restraining order, barring New Jersey from enforcing the new legislation.
However, her new ruling upholds some of the law’s provisions stipulating stricter requirements for firearm permits as those are “consistent with the Second Amendment.”
New Jersey’s Attorney General, Matthew Platkin, a Democrat, described Bumb’s ruling as “devastating for public safety.”
“Over and over, the evidence has shown that keeping firearms out of sensitive places will keep our residents safe, and our elected officials passed sensible laws to do exactly that,” Platkin declared in a release earlier this week.
“But 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. This decision is bad constitutional law and bad for New Jersey. We will be appealing immediately,” the leftist state AG vowed.
A federal judge on Tuesday ruled most of a New Jersey concealed carry law that prevents licensed firearm owners from carrying guns in government buildings and libraries, among other locations, unconstitutional in a victory for gun rights advocates. https://t.co/ov3Fc456A6
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) May 18, 2023
