The decision of the United States Supreme Court in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen holds significant implications for carrying a handgun in New Jersey and the law governing the issuance of permits to carry a handgun. The Bruen decision establishes that states cannot deny permits to carry a handgun to otherwise-qualified citizens who fail to show that they have the “proper cause” to carry a handgun. New Jersey law relies on a similar standard, considering whether an applicant has a “justifiable need,” in determining whether to issue a permit to carry a handgun.

In accordance with the precedent established in the Bruen decision, laws requiring showings of particularized need are no longer legally viable to determine whether a person may carry a handgun in public. The Bruen decision does make clear, however, that the Legislature can enact laws to protect our communities from threats to public health, safety, and welfare posed by gun violence, which take into account as appropriate the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment ruling while continuing to promote and enhance public safety.

The first paragraph agrees that NJ can no longer require a “justifiable need”. “All lawful purposes” is all that is needed. (That is the standard phrase I was told to put on CCW applications when they ask “why?”)

The second paragraph acknowledges that there are some laws that can infringe and Bruen did say as much. It is that the Bruen statement was much more limited than what the NJ legislature (and NY) did.

Statistics show that expanding handgun carrying creates safety risks, helping to fuel the epidemic of gun violence. For example, a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that the estimated average rate of officer-involved shootings increased by 12.9 percent in ten states that relaxed restrictions between 2014 and 2020 on civilians carrying concealed firearms in public. Accordingly, evidence demonstrates that more guns on the streets can translate into more acts of gun violence. To mitigate the impact of having more people carrying guns in public places, steps must be taken to better ensure that those who exercise the right to carry are responsible, law-abiding, and appropriately trained individuals who would not pose undue safety risks if armed in public places.

Here they have lost it. There is NOTHING in statistics or votes or polls that allow any law that infringes.

In Bruen, the Supreme Court recognized that states may prohibit individuals who are not “law-abiding, responsible citizens” from carrying firearms in public, and endorsed the use of “licensing requirements for carrying a handgun for self-defense.” Although the Court did not provide a complete list of lawful requirements, it specifically cited a “background check, mental health check, training in firearms handling and in laws regarding the use of force, among other possible requirements” as permissible. The purpose of these checks, the Court explained, is to “ensure only that those bearing arms in the jurisdiction are in fact, ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens.’” It is thus important to bolster and improve the process in this State for ensuring that only such individuals possess and carry firearms. Toward that end, this act strengthens the criteria and background investigation requirements that are used to determine whether an applicant is qualified to carry a firearm in New Jersey.

But Bruen doesn’t actually say that that background checks, mental health records check, training in firearms, and in laws regarding use of force were permissible. Bruen says that 43 states are shall-issue and may require… This is not the same as giving permission. This is a statement of the current situation. English is hard for some people.

By contrast, 43 States employ objective shall-issue licensing regimes. Those shall-issue regimes may require a license applicant to undergo fingerprinting, a background check, a mental health records check, and training in firearms handling and in laws regarding the use of force, among other possible requirements. Brief for Arizona et al. as Amici Curiae 7. Unlike New York’s may-issue regime, those shall-issue regimes do not grant open-ended discretion to licensing officials and do not require a showing of some special need apart from self-defense. As petitioners acknowledge, shall-issue licensing regimes are constitutionally permissible, subject of course to an as-applied challenge if a shall-issue licensing regime does not operate in that manner in practice. Tr. of Oral Arg. 50-51

— Bruen

It is always important to understand that the Supreme Court is always answering the question that is put to it. They can’t answer questions that are not put to them. So the question was asked in Bruen is it constitutional to require good cause to get a permit to carry? The court answered “Hell NO!” and then went on to instruct the inferior courts on how they should answer other second amendment questions.

It is highly likely that at some point in the near future there will be lawsuits filed questioning the requirement to get a permit to carry at all. At that point the state will be the defendant and will have to provide the district court with analogous laws from around 1791 that show that there were laws requiring government permission to carry a gun. There aren’t any that are not outliers.

Of course NJ went deep into the “sensitive places” places.

Heller as quoted in Bruen says “[N]othing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings…” (No other places are explicitly listed in the pull quote in Bruen from Heller.

So they have schools and government buildings from Heller but again, the question of are all government buildings “sensitive places” has not been asked of the court.

To be clear, even if a modern-day regulation is not a dead ringer for historical precursors, it still may be analogous enough to pass constitutional muster. For example, courts can use analogies to “longstanding” “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings” to determine whether modern regulations are constitutionally permissible. Id., at 626, 128 S.Ct. 2783. That said, respondents’ attempt to characterize New York’s proper-cause requirement as a “sensitive-place” law lacks merit because there is no historical basis for New York to effectively declare the island of Manhattan a “sensitive place” simply because it is crowded and protected generally by the New York City Police Department. Pp. 2131-2134.
–Bruen

Here it is explicitly stated in Bruen that a place being crowded does not make it a “sensitive place”.

From Bruen “Although the historical record yields relatively few 18th- and 19th-century “sensitive places” where weapons were altogether prohibited—e.g., legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses—we are also aware of no disputes regarding the lawfulness of such prohibitions.”

Here is that magic phrase again, which we saw in Miller “we are also aware of no disputes…” This is court speak for “nobody asked the question, nobody presented evidence, thus we can’t answer the question.”

From Miller, Heller, McDonald, and Bruen we have the following list of “sensitive” places that the Supreme court has listed.

1. Schools
2. Government Buildings
3. Legislative assemblies
4. Polling places
5. Courthouses

Note that Bruen removed the “Government Buildings” and replaced it with “Legislative assemblies”.

The sensitive-place prohibitions on dangerous weapons set forth in this act are rooted in history and tradition. They are analogous to historical laws that can be found from the Founding era to Reconstruction, which are also found in modern laws in many states. History and tradition support at least the following location-based restrictions on carrying firearms:

In standard infringer methods they list NO laws from that time that support sensitive places. They then proceed to list all of the places which they are declaring to be gun free zones.

• Places that are the site of core constitutional activity
• Schools
• Parks, recreation spaces, any place where children congregate (think under 18)
• Any place where there are “vulnerable classes of people”
• Any place that alcohol is sold
• An place where “large” groups of people congregate
• Places where volatile conditions may pose a threat to public safety
• transportation and public infrastructure
• Private property without consent of the property owner (This means that renters might not have the right to have guns in their own home)

There is a wealth of hoops that a permit applicant must jump through before they might be given government permission to exercise a fundamental right guaranteed under the constitution. Training, permission to purchase, universal background checks, 4 references that are not related and on and on and on.

NJ Bill S3214 2022-2023

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – Clarksville Police are investigating a string of related carjackings involving an armed woman and a small child on Thursday.

According to the report from CPD, a 51-year-old woman was approached by an armed woman while pumping gas at the Minit Mart on Trenton Road around 4:45 p.m. on Thursday. The victim told officers the woman pointed a gun at her and stole her Nissan Juke.

Roughly 30 minutes later, CPD received a ‘shots fired’ call in the area of Warfield Blvd. and Ted Crozier Sr. Blvd. Police said the woman fired one shot at a man with a black Mercedes-Benz while holding her 5-year-old child and took off with the vehicle. The victim told officers that it appeared the woman was using her child as a shield. The previously-stolen Nissan Juke was found in the parking lot of the Jubilee House nearby.

Report: woman uses child as shield during carjackings (wsmv.com)

And you know what pisses me off? Mom of the Year will probably get a light sentence because she has a child, and she will get her kid back just because she was the vaginal portal for the infant.

In my last post, commenter Curby said this:

Show me the stats that prove those states have “5times” the “gun violence “… ny is a free fire zone. And again this shows how stupid liberals think we are that restricting honest citizens gun rights makes us “safer”… ???

The answer is, on paper they do.

The reason they do is pure Soviet style disinformation.

Simply, law enforcement doesn’t report the crimes.

They reduce charges, drop gun charges, don’t e enforce the law against illegal immigrants, etc.

So even though anyone with eyes can see the amout of gun violence that occurs, if there are no official reports, it doesn’t exist, therefore they have lower crime rates than Red states.

The NYPD has notoriously undercounted crime for years.

I expect one day every cop in NYC or LA or San Francisco to quit, and 911 dispatch shut down, and then the local government will say they have 0% crime because if there is no one to take the reports, it never happened.

It’s that simple.

https://videos.gunfreezone.net/videos/watch/8a9e5aa4-4aff-418e-aa4a-9afb36965db1

And why at least you should carry pepper spray or OC-infused 9mm hollow points.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Just in time for Christmas, New York legislators returned to the state capital Thursday to give themselves a nice holiday gift: a pay raise that would make them the nation’s best-paid state lawmakers.

Members of the state Assembly and Senate would make a base salary of $142,000 under a bill they passed during a special session, a 29% raise over their salary of $110,000.

That would send them racing ahead of state lawmakers in California, who are now the nation’s best-paid legislators with a yearly base pay of about $119,000, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Bill would give New York the nation’s best-paid legislature (ny1.com)

And that does not include bribes, kickbacks and stock tips. And now you know why Liberal states legislate the way they do: The Constitution does not pay cash.

After the Bruen decision, New York Governor Kathy Hochul sighed the most restrictive concealed carry bill into law.  It effectively turned New York into a gun free zone, banning concealed carry in all public places and private places that did not post explicit permission to carry.

The Governor made this statement about the law:

“In response to the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down New York’s century-old concealed carry law, we took swift and thoughtful action to keep New Yorkers safe,” Governor Hochul said. “I refuse to surrender my right as Governor to protect New Yorkers from gun violence or any other form of harm. In New York State, we will continue leading the way forward and implementing common sense gun safety legislation.”

Even while a judge has halted several provisions of this law after a number of suits have been filed, the State of New Jersey just passed an even more restrictive gun law, A4769.

This is the New Jersey Governor’s statement:

“What kind of state do we want to be? Do we want to be like Mississippi or Alabama, whose firearm death rates are nearly five times ours, or do we want to remain a state where people can actually be and feel safe?” Murphy said at a bill signing event flanked by gun control advocates in red “Moms Demand Action” shirts. “This law ensures that no matter what Washington might throw at us, we will keep doing everything we can to ensure the safety of our citizens.”

It’s clear, from their own admissions, that they passed these laws explicitly to do a run around the Bruen decision.  They want to deny citizens the right to carry and they will write their laws in such as way as to deny citizens their constitutional rights while maliciously complying with the strictest language of Bruen.

The Supreme Court made it clear that it believed the Second Amendment meant the right to bear Arms in public and these states gave the Court and their citizens a big middle finger.

It is a shame how the Supreme Court is treated as a second class branch of a co-equal branch of government.  States regularly try to weasel out of complying with Court decisions.  Especially Blue states when it comes to gun rights decisions.

Since I’m no longer a Conservative, I am ready for some authoritarianism on behalf of the Court.

When the Court establishes a right, like the right to carry concealed, and a state instantly comes up with a law explicitly to counter the Court’s decision, arrest the state government for contempt of Court.

The idea of the states as laboratories of democracy doesn’t give them the right to violate the Constitution. That’s established in the United States.

That needs to be enforced.

New York and New Jersey need to be punished for this in a meaningful way that sends a message “you don’t get to runaround the Supreme Court and the Bill of Rights.”

Who else is sick of the overwhelming idiotic holiday behavior of people? You have been an asshole or a shithead all year long and suddenly I am to believe you are the physical presence of a Hallmark movie secondary character?

This is funny because it is true.

At the same time, I am all Holyday-dy because the missus says so and I am not the one who want to wear the tree where the sun don’t shine.

I do believe that at least one reader has seen this happening in real life.

That would kill any husband.

And if you solved this problem mathematically rather than tactically, you must be new to this blog.

And finally:

BBQ & Smoking post to return!