New Jersey Second Amendment advocates won a victory on Monday when a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order impacting recently enacted gun control restrictions targeting concealed carry permit holders by staying some of the law’s more onerous provisions.
Republican legislators lauded the judge’s decision to grant injunctive relief in Koons vs. Reynolds.
“Republicans warned when Governor Murphy’s concealed carry law was being rushed through the Legislature that it was an unconstitutional attempt by Democrats to circumvent the United States Supreme Court and strip away the rights of legal firearm owners,” said Senate Republican Leader Steven Oroho (R-24). “The federal judge’s ruling, which validates what we have been saying, is a victory for the 2nd Amendment and the rights of law-abiding citizens to protect themselves both in public and in private. We look forward to the offending provisions of the law being permanently struck down.”
Garden State Democrats passed a massive gun control package last year in a transparent attempt to limit the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen decision. The restrictions include broad new categories of gun free zones which effective nullify the impact of Bruen.
The 60-page opinion of Judge Renée Marie Bumb accompanying the order argues that “[n]either the State nor the public has an interest in enforcing unconstitutional laws.”
“[T]he effect of the challenged provisions is an immediate constitutional deprivation of Plaintiffs’ Second Amendment right to carry a handgun for self-defense in public,” wrote Bumb. “Plaintiffs can no longer exercise this right by carrying their firearms at locations they were accustomed to visiting in their day-to-day lives and in ways law-abiding gun owners routinely do. Additionally, if they were to do so, Plaintiffs would face an “imminent” threat of prosecution, which the State acknowledged at oral argument. Accordingly, Plaintiffs have satisfied the irreparable injury prong justifying injunctive relief.”
The injunction does not immediately affect other aspects of the legislation like the liability insurance requirement.
