It’s hardly constitutional, but when has that ever stopped him before?
On Thursday, Governor Phil Murphy signed Trenton’s latest attempt at gun control into law. The bill is an acknowledgement of the recent decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen but seeks to thwart its impact by imposing new regulations including a wide variety of brand new gun free zones.
“While we are bound to follow the Supreme Court’s ruling, we are also obligated to do everything we can – consistent with that ruling – to ensure that guns do not necessarily proliferate in our communities,” said Murphy at the bill signing presser. “Doing nothing and blindly allowing concealed weapons into every corner of our communities does not make us safer.”
Republicans see it differently.
“It’s a shame the Democratic Majority would not work with Republicans to ensure that the concealed carry of firearms can be managed in a safe, reasonable, and constitutional way,” state Senator Anthony Bucco (R-25) lamented earlier in the week during floor debate.” Instead, they modeled after an extreme and clearly unconstitutional New York law that federal judges have already ruled against with new insurance requirements that may be impossible to meet. It’s an overreaching attempt by Democrats to see how far they can go in rolling back the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision while imposing even greater restrictions on law-abiding firearm owners than ever before.”
The bill is also extremely poor written with terms that are poorly defined and likely to lead to unintended consequences when applied in the real world.
