NEWARK, N.J. – The National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday challenging New Jersey’s “justifiable need” concealed carry standard. The complaint – which seeks both declaratory and injunctive relief – contends that the state’s notoriously restrictive gun laws violate both the Second and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.
In their filing, the plaintiffs argue that “the practical effect of New Jersey’s ‘justifiable need’ requirement is to make it wholly illegal and subject to extreme punishment of up to 10 years in prison for typical law-abiding citizens to carry handguns in public —for by definition, these ordinary citizens cannot show that they face a specific, unavoidable threat that poses a special danger to their safety.”
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The complaint names eight defendants including N.J. Attorney General Gurbir Grewal.
One plaintiff is a firearms instructor who the NRA says boasts both a federal and state firearms retail license. Notwithstanding the instructor’s credentials, the instructor was, according to the NRA, “told not to even bother because it would just be denied for lacking a justifiable need” upon submitting a permit application at a local police department.
“That is egregious but pretty common in New Jersey,” said Michael Jean, NRA-ILA Director of Litigation. “The Supreme Court said that the Second Amendment ‘takes out of the hands of government […] the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon.’ But that’s what officials in New Jersey do when they reject applicants who they believe haven’t justified their need to exercise their rights. This lawsuit’s aim is to put an end to that.”
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a number of gun cases back in June including another New Jersey challenge to the justifiable need standard.
