New Jersey

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NJ Senate Votes On Mag Limitation And Gun Ban Tomorrow (updated)

May 12, 2014 by 8 Comments

The NRA-ILA sent out an alert advising that the New Jersey State Senate will vote on SB 993 tomorrow (Monday, May 12th) at noon. They are asking the people in NJ call or email their state senator and request that they vote against this bill.

From the NRA-ILA:

On Monday, May 12, the New Jersey Senate is scheduled to consider Senate Bill 993
at noon.  As previously reported, S.993 seeks to restrict the maximum
capacity of ammunition magazines from 15 to 10 rounds and ban certain
popular firearms.  Under the guise of public safety, anti-gun
politicians continue their efforts in Trenton to erode the Second
Amendment rights of New Jersey residents.  New Jersey is one of only a
few states which already has a magazine restriction, and another
arbitrary limit will have no impact on crime or criminals.  Instead,
this legislation demonstrably favors criminals who prefer to prey on
unarmed victims.


Senate Bill 993 is scheduled to be considered by the full Senate at noon on Monday, May 12.  It is more important than ever to call and e-mail your state Senator and respectfully, yet insistently, urge him or her to vote AGAINST S.993.  Contact information for state Senators can be found here.


If you would like to tune into the Senate debate on S.993, you can do so by clicking here.

The bill would exempt tube feed .22LR rifles from the 10 round maximum. It would also allow both current law enforcement officers to carry 15-round magazines while off-duty and it would extend this same “courtesy” to retired law enforcement officers.

The kicker part of the bill is this:

14. (New section) Any person who legally owns a semi-automatic rifle with a fixed magazine capacity exceeding 10 rounds or a large capacity ammunition magazine as defined under subsection y. of N.J.S.2C:39-1 which is capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition on the effective date of P.L. , c. (C. ) (pending before the Legislature as this bill) may retain possession of that rifle or magazine for a period not to exceed 180 days from the effective date of this act. During this time period, the owner of the semi-automatic rifle or magazine shall:

a. Transfer the semi-automatic rifle or magazine to any person or firm lawfully entitled to own or possess that firearm or magazine;

b. Render the semi-automatic rifle or magazine inoperable; or

c. Voluntarily surrender the semi-automatic rifle or magazine pursuant to the provisions of N.J.S.2C:39-12.1

UPDATED: Sebastian is reporting that the bill passed the NJ Senate on a 22-17 vote. It now goes to Gov. Chris Christie who has never been a friend of gun owners. However, he does have Presidential aspirations and this could help our cause. Now is the time to start pressuring him. His online contact address is here.

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Update On Drake Case

March 15, 2014 by 5 Comments



Drake v. Jerejian is the New Jersey case that is a challenge to their concealed carry permit requirements. The case started out a long while ago as Muller v. Maenza and Piszczatoski v. Maenza. The case was appealed to the US Supreme Court in January.

On Friday, the state of New Jersey filed a brief opposing this petition to the Supreme Court. The state asserts that there is no reason for the Supreme Court to hear the case and that the Second Amendment does not preclude the state from requiring a justified need to issue a carry permit.

From the Second Amendment Foundation:

NJ AG OPPOSES SUPREME COURT
REVIEW OF NJ CARRY LAW

Today, the New Jersey Attorney General filed a brief in the Drake right to carry case, urging the U.S. Supreme Court not to take the case. Drake is the pending federal challenge to New Jersey’s unconstitutional carry law, brought by the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs (ANJRPC) and the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), who have asked the Supreme Court to hear the case.

At the heart of the lawsuit is the idea that citizens should not have to prove “need” to exercise a fundamental Constitutional right. New Jersey’s “justifiable need” standard requires the applicant to provide evidence of prior attacks or threats before a carry permit is issued by a judge – a virtually impossible standard for most people to meet.

Though less extreme in its rhetoric than in earlier phases of the case, the Attorney General in the brief essentially defends New Jersey’s carry law and tells the Supreme Court there is no reason for it to hear the case:

“[T]he Second Amendment does not prohibit New Jersey from requiring applicants to demonstrate a justifiable need before granting a permit to publicly carry a handgun. The justifiable need standard in New Jersey’s Handgun Permit Law qualifies as a presumptively lawful, longstanding regulation that does not burden conduct within the scope of the Second Amendment’s guarantee… Petitioners have failed to demonstrate that the Third Circuit’s decision here presents a question that warrants this Court’s discretionary review.”

While it is not unusual for an attorney general to defend state law, it is unfortunate to see such a blatant violation of fundamental rights be given legitimacy by bureaucrats.

“The right to defend yourself with a firearm outside the home, otherwise known as right to carry, has long been disparaged and denied in the Garden State,” said ANJRPC Executive Director Scott Bach. “We intend to change that with this lawsuit.”

“This case is extremely important because it may have a national impact on gun rights in all 50 states,” said SAF Executive Vice President and founder Alan Gottlieb. “This suit is part of our effort to win firearms freedom one lawsuit at a time.”

The Supreme Court will likely decide whether it will take the Drake case between April and June. We will spare no effort or expense to restore right to carry in the Garden State and protect that right all across America.

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Technology Shouldn’t Be Allowed To Trump The Second Amendment

November 21, 2013 by 2 Comments

The Wall Street Journal had an article today about the development of so-called smart guns and how this may trigger a decade old law in New Jersey. In 2002 New Jersey passed a law saying that within three years after a so-called smart gun is available for sale on the US market and that the state’s Attorney General has certified it as reliable, then all new handguns sold there must have that technology.

BATFE has approved the German-made iP1 Pistol by Armatix for importation into the US and it is expected to hit the market by the end of the year. It has also be certified for California’s handgun roster. The iP1 pistol uses a RFID chip which requires communication with a special watch. In addition, the “Intelligun” from Kodiak Industries in Utah which uses a fingerprint-scan is also about to come to market.

“The technology is here,” said Nicola Bocour, a director at Ceasefire NJ, a gun-violence (sic) prevention group. “Apple is using biometrics with its smartphones. Guns are next.”

Backers of New Jersey’s law and signed by then-Gov. James McGreevey hope it would cut down on suicides and firearms accidents, especially those involving children. “Our thought was that the bill, if passed, would save lives every year, without infringing anyone’s rights,” said Stephen Teret, a professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University who helped New Jersey craft the law.

The New Jersey law specifically exempts law enforcement from having to use personalized guns. If the law’s authors thought the technology not reliable enough for law enforcement use, then why is it considered good enough for the public?

Professor Teret is quite mistaken if he thinks this law doesn’t infringe “anyone’s rights”. The technology isn’t free. The iP1 Pistol costs $1,400 while the Intelligun grips from Kodiak cost $399. How is requiring a citizen to pay for expensive technology in order to exercise an enumerated right not an infringement? Did not the US Supreme Court say in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections that a poll tax infringed upon the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment? How, pray tell, is requiring expensive technology, which may or may not work, not the functional equivalent of a poll tax?

I won’t get into the downsides of the technology which I think are numerous or the adverse self-protection potentialities of it. I would point to a recent poll that states a wide majority of Americans oppose the technology and doubt its reliability. This is a technology that, in my opinion, has limited use and is not one that I’d stake my life upon.

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On Today’s Legislative Calendar For Gun Rights

May 30, 2013 by

Legislative sessions across the country are slowly coming to a close and with it come votes on gun rights issue. There will be important votes today in both Illinois and New Jersey.

The Illinois Senate will be voting on a number of bills that impact gun rights. Perhaps the most important one will be on their version of a concealed carry law. The bill is HB183 Gun Safety and Responsibility Act and is sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago). It is opposed by the NRA, ISRA, and Illinois Carry. The bill is much weaker than SB2193 that passed the State House last week and it preserves home-rule on firearms issues.

The other bills coming up include SB851 Safety Tech sponsored by Sen. Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago), SB1002 Criminal Law Tech sponsored by Sen. Dan Kotowski (D-Park Ridge), and SB1003 Criminal Law Tech sponsored by Sen. Antonio Munoz (D-Chicago). Raoul’s SB851 includes both universal background checks and a lost or stolen reporting requirement. Kotowski’s SB1002 is a magazine ban bill with an exception for movie and TV productions. Finally, Munoz’s SB1003 increases penalties for firearms violations – even unintentional. All of these bills are opposed by Illinois Carry and ISRA.

The Illinois Senate is scheduled to go into session at 11am Central.

Meanwhile, the New Jersey Senate will be taking up a number of bills that either ban certain firearms or curtail Second Amendment rights. They go into session at 2pm Eastern.

From the Outdoor Wire on S. 2723 and S. 2178:

Senate Bill 2723 — This omnibus bill sponsored by Senate President Stephen Sweeney includes many different gun control sections which will impact retailers and gun owners throughout the state. It suspends Second Amendment rights if one does not have proof of firearms training, including for all current handgun owners; imposes a seven-day waiting period for handgun purchases; bans all private sales of firearms; effectively creates a registry of ammunition purchases and long gun sales.

Senate Bill 2178 — Sponsored by state Senators Raymond Lesniak (D-20) and Barbara Buono (D-18), this bill is a flat-out statewide gun ban on possession of .50 caliber firearms. The current version was amended to make this bill effective immediately upon enactment.

Other bad bills include S. 2485 which bans anyone who is on the No-Fly list from having either a firearms ID card or a pistol purchase permit and S. 2467 which mandates divestiture in gun companies by the state pension system.

The New Jersey Second Amendment Society issued an alert yesterday on these and other bills. It can be found here and gives contact information.

If you are a resident of either state, I’d urge you to contact your state senators as well as senate leadership to register your opposition to these bills.

UPDATE: In what may come as no surprise, the New Jersey Senate passed all the gun control bills before it. Sebastian has the whole story here. One needs only to see this video to understand the disdain those in power in the Garden State hold both the 1st and 2nd Amendments. If the State Trooper’s shirt had been either brown or black, you’d have sworn a time machine had transported you to the era of the Third Reich.

No word yet on any grand compromise from Illinois on concealed carry.

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I, For One, Wouldn’t Miss The Old SOB

April 8, 2013 by 3 Comments

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) had previously announced that he planned to retire at the end of his term in 2014. However, if this article from Politico is accurate, he doesn’t plan to return to the Senate this coming week – or maybe ever.

On Friday night, with the Senate still in recess, Lautenberg released a statement announcing he would be out next week. Lautenberg did not make clear any return date.

“I regret that I will not be returning to Washington next week as I continue treatment for, and recuperate from, muscle weakness and fatigue. My physician continues to advise me to work from home and not travel at this time,” Lautenberg said in a statement issued by his office.

Lautenberg added: “I am disappointed I will not be present for the opening of the debate on gun legislation in the Senate. It is an issue I am deeply passionate about, and my victories over the gun lobby are among my proudest accomplishments. I am, however, gratified that my legislation to ban high-capacity ammunition magazines will be one of the key amendments offered to this bill.”

I’m not disappointed nor do I think anyone who believes in the Second Amendment is going to be disappointed if Lautenberg never returns.

The Politico article goes into the timing of a potential early retirement. If Lautenberg retires before late August, an interim senator would be appointed to serve until November 2013 at which time a special election would held. If it goes beyond that time, the interim senator would serve out the remainder of the term. It is presumed that Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) would appoint a Republican to serve as the interim senator. That said, if the Republican senator holds similar views on guns to that of Christie, it would be no gain for gun rights.

H/T Todd

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From The NJ Second Amendment Society

February 15, 2013 by

The New Jersey Law and Public Safety Committee held hearings yesterday on 23 gun control bills and the pushed all of the bills out of committee to the full house. As the release below from the NJ Second Amendment Society makes clear, it was the intention of the committee chairman that all of these bills would pass his committee.


NJ LAW AND PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE PUSHES THROUGH ANTI FREEDOM BILLS DESPITE OVERWHELMING OPPOSITION

By Rich Petkevis
NJ2AS Media Relations
press@nj2as.com

On Wednesday, February 13, 2013, the New Jersey Law and Public Safety Committee heard testimony on 24 anti freedom bills. Approximately 500 liberty minded people showed up to testify against these bills, however only about 200 actually made it into the State House. The other 300 were forced to stay outside during the hearings. Around a half dozen people were on hand to testify in favor of the proposed legislation.

The day started with Committee Chair ASM Charles Mainor declaring all bills would move out of committee and into the general assembly. This bold statement set the tone for the day. As the hearing got under way, it was evident that the chairman and the majority of the committee had no plans on listening to any of those who testified against the bills. The first two pieces of legislation were then hurried through, and only 5 people allowed to testify on each. It was brought to the attention of ASM Mainor that more than 5 people wanted to testify on these bills, and explained that people were told to write “testify on all” instead of individually listing each bill when registering for the day. ASM Mainor then offered to allow testimony after the committee voted on the bills, further insulting the majority of the crowd. The reaction of the crowd forced Mainor to allow people to testify on all the bills, then voting would happen at the end of the day.

Several members of the NJ2AS, ANJRPC, various Tea Party organizations, and other liberty minded citizens came up to testify. People were told there was a two minute time limit, however anyone who went up to speak in favor of the rights restricting legislation were pretty much allowed to talk as long as they wanted. Anyone testifying against the bills were held strictly to the two minute time limit. Toward the end of the day, a Navy Veteran stood up to testify, and called out ASM Mainor for not listening to her being he was having a sidebar conversation when she tried to speak. Mainor quickly shouted back at her, “I am going to conduct my meeting my way, your time is up” drawing much anger from the crowd.

It was a long day, and all of the bills left committee and are headed to the NJ general assembly for vote sometime next week. There was one bill that stood to protect the privacy of NJ firearms owners, A3788 which exempts firearms records from NJ’s open public records law.

NJ2AS urges all freedom loving, liberty minded citizens who oppose this legislation to call, email, and fax New Jersey’s elected members of the Legislature and urge them to vote NO on these bills.

New Jersey gun bills introduced since January 1, 2013 can be found at http://www.firearmspolicy.org/newjersey.

The committee chairman, Assemblyman Charles Mainor, is also Detective Mainor of the Jersey City Police Department. It would be interesting to know if he acts as much like thug when he’s on the streets of Jersey City as he does in running his committee.

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A Look At Gun Prohibitionists In State Legislatures

February 13, 2013 by

After my post on gun control legislation in Minnesota and its impact on jobs in that state, I started looking at the legislators who were sponsoring this legislation. Other than the fact that they were all Democrats, or as they are called in Minnesota – Democrat-Farmer-Labor, they had another similarity. They had made their careers, for the most part, in the public sector. Some, like Rep. Alice Hausman and Rep. Phyllis Kahn, even listed their occupation as “Legislator”. Look at the list below of the sponsors of HF 241 which is Minnesota’s version of an assault weapons (sic) ban.

Rep. Alice Hausman
(DFL-St. Paul)
Legislator/fmr Teacher
Rep. Frank Horstein
(DFL-Minneapolis)
Community Organizer
Rep. Erik Simonson
(DFL-Duluth)
Asst Fire Chief
Rep. Jim Davnie
(DFL-Minneapolis)
Financial Educator
Rep. Linda Slocum
(DFL-Richfield)
Teacher
Rep. Rena Moran
(DFL-St. Paul)
Parent Leader Coord.
Rep. Raymond Dehn
(DFL-Minneapolis)
Sustainability
Consultant
Rep. JoAnn Ward
(DFL-Woodbury)
Retired Teacher
Rep. Phyllis Kahn (DFL-Minneapolis)
Legislator/University
Research Assoc.

This made me wonder if the sponsors of gun control legislation in other states shared the similar characteristics of being primary from the public sector. With hearings on gun control legislation in Colorado and New Jersey scheduled for this week, I looked at those two states in particular.

Yesterday, the Colorado House held their hearing on some particularly onerous bills. According to the reports I’ve read, the legislators in question had their minds made up and weren’t really there to listen. Lets look at the list of sponsors for these bills as well as the sponsors for their State Senate counterparts.

Rep. Lois Court (D-Denver)
Community College Instructor
Rep. Crisanta Duran (D-Denver)
Attorney
Rep. Mark Ferrandino (D-Denver)
Legislator
Rep. Rhonda Fields (D-Arapahoe)
Legislator
Rep. Randy Fischer (D-Larimer)
Consulting Eng.
Rep. Mike Foote (D-Boulder)
Attorney
Rep. Dickey Lee Hullinghorst (D-Boulder)
Ret. Gov’t Affairs
Rep. Claire Levy (D-Boulder)
Attorney
Rep. Beth McCann (D-Denver)
Legislator
Rep. Jovan Melton (D-Arapahoe)
Consultant
Rep. Dominick Moreno (D-Adams)
Legislator
Rep. Dan Pabon (D-Denver)
Eng./Attorney
Rep. Cherylin Peniston (D-Adams)
Ret. Teacher
Rep. Paul Rosenthal (D-Arapahoe)
Teacher
Rep. Su Ryden (D-Arapahoe)
Legislator
Rep. Joseph Salazar (D-Adams)
Civil Rights Attorney
Rep. Sue Schafer (D-Jefferson)
Educator/Small Bus. Owner
Rep. Angela Williams (D-Denver)
Business Owner
Sen. Morgan Carroll (D-Arapahoe)
Attorney-Disability Law
Sen. Rollie Heath (D-Boulder)
Legislator/Ret. Pres of Johns Manville Corp
Sen. Mary Hodge (D-Adams)
Property Mgmt/fmr. Teacher

Looking over this list, you can see that with few exceptions, the gun prohibitionists come out of the public sector. The only real notable exception on this list is Sen. Rollie Heath of Boulder County who had a significant business career culminating in his being President of building products company Johns Mansville.

Let’s move on to New Jersey where the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee is holding hearings today on a whole host of gun control proposals. Are the proponents of gun control legislation in New Jersey any different than in Minnesota and Colorado? The answer is yes and no. The “no” comes from the fact that they are all Democrats and that they mostly come from the public sector. What makes New Jersey different are the number of actively serving law enforcement officers that are State Assemblymen proposing this legislation. To me this seems like an outrageous conflict of interest but I don’t live in the state of New Jersey and know their local political customs.

Assemblyman Joseph
Cryan (D-Union)
Undersheriff
Assemblyman Jason O’Donnell (D-Bayonne)
Dir. Of Public Safety
Assemblywoman Mila Jasey (D-Maplewood)
Legislator
Assemblywoman Annette Quijano (D-Elizabeth)
Mun. Prosecutor
Assemblyman Sean Connors (D-Jersey City)
Detective/Police Officer
Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Teaneck)
Consultant/Fmr Sheriff
Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle
(D-Englewood)
Funeral Director
Assemblyman John McKeon (D-Madison)
Attorney
Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman
(D-Trenton)
Legislator
Assemblyman Charles Mainor (D-Jersey City)
Detective/Police Officer

Summing this up, if you look at just who is proposing the gun control legislation, it is Democrats who tend to have worked their entire lives in the public sector and fed at the public trough. I shouldn’t find this surprising as the hallmark of all of this type of legislation is the constraint on liberties and the bureaucratic minutiae that their implementation will entail. Is not that the ethos of the modern public service to a tee?

UPDATE: I wrote this before listening to Michael Bane’s Down Range Radio podcast. The first segment of the podcast is instructive as to why you are seeing legislators from a public sector background pushing the gun control agenda so strongly. Those of us in the gun culture are a threat to them and their progressive agenda. It isn’t due to our guns but rather our attitudes towards hard work, self reliance, independence, and libertarianism. Hard working, self reliant, independent people are less dependent upon government largesse and less likely to buy into a common good as proclaimed by the progressive elites.

Michael mentions two articles that take this a bit further. First, there is an article in Human Events which talks about the gun culture versus the culture of dependency. The second is by Andrew Klavan writing about Christopher Dorner and the left’s use of violence. Both of these articles are relatively short and worth the time to read. The more we understand our enemies and their hate towards us, the better we can tailor our fight to preserve our rights.

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Oh, Noes!

December 8, 2012 by 2 Comments

In an anti-gun editorial today in the Herald News of Woodland Park, New Jersey, the editors urge Gov. Chris Christie to unite with governors of other states to make it tougher to purchase firearms. They say it won’t be an easy task as they express their dismay about pro-rights moves by other states.

We realize it’s no easy task. Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed a law last
year to allow people to carry concealed weapons into bars and other
places that serve alcohol, joining Arizona and Tennessee. Gov. Bobby
Jindal of Louisiana signed a law in 2010 allowing guns into houses of
worship. North Dakota, Texas, Maine and a raft of other states allow
employees to bring a gun to work as long as it stays locked in the car.
The Wisconsin Senate now allows members to carry guns on the floor,
while the state Assembly allows guns in the public viewing galleries.

The thought that some states actually recognize that law enforcement can’t be everywhere and realize that responsible citizens should be allowed to provide for their own self-protection is beyond comprehension to them. It shouldn’t be given that they just had a cop in that town indicted yesterday on attempted sexual assault on underage girls but it is.

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Banning The Tool And Not The Act In NJ

September 27, 2012 by 5 Comments

The New Jersey General Assembly has passed a bill out of the Consumer Affairs Committee that would ban the sale of laser pointers that generate more than one milliwatt output. The ostensible reason behind this ban is that law enforcement authorities say people have been shining laser pointers at plane cockpits.

Earlier this month, state and federal law enforcement authorities warned
of the dangers of pointing lasers at planes, an increasingly common
occurrence that can temporarily blind pilots and put the crew and
passengers at risk.

There were
269 reported laser “strikes” in New Jersey airspace last year, authorities said, as compared to just four in 2007.

“Laser pointers can serve a legitimate need in the classroom and in
business settings, but clearly in those cases we don’t need
super-powered laser pointers that can put people at risk,” the sponsor
of the bill, Assemblyman Nelson Albano (D-Cumberland) said.

The bill would impose fines of not more than $500 for the first offense
and not more than $1,000 for each subsequent offense. An identical bill
passed the Senate in June.

people at risk.”

The bill, A3169, doesn’t just impact those laser pointers used in making presentations. From the text of the bill:

Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

     1.    a. No person shall sell
or offer to sell a laser pointer that exceeds one milliwatt in output power.
     b.    For the purposes of this
section, “laser pointer” means any device that emits laser light to
project a beam that may be used for aiming, targeting, or pointing out
features.
     c.     Nothing in this section
shall apply to the sale of a laser pointer intended to be used by, or under the
supervision of, a health care practitioner licensed under the laws of the State
of New Jersey.

By this definition, the sale of the laser products sold by Crimson Trace, Viridian, and LaserMax would all be outlawed.  Their peak output is 5 milliwatts.

This is a bill that needs to go nowhere. It will end up banning a self-defense tool that can help in stressful situations. It is so typical of politicians that rather severely punishing the transgression they think it is easier to just ban something.

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Even In New Jersey The Second Amendment Applies

June 27, 2012 by 5 Comments

On Friday, the Appellate Division of the Superior Court in New Jersey overturned the trial court in a case involving the denial of a firearms permit and ordered the return of Justin Blasko’s firearms absent any new disqualifying events. They made their decision on Second Amendment grounds.

Mr Blasko’s troubles started when his apartment’s building superintendent entered to fix his air conditioner and saw “assault weapons” along with other stuff including a four foot alligator. The super called police and they entered the apartment, seized his firearms, and issued him a summons for the alligator, a snake, and a leg-hold trap. They also filed a complaint that he had an illegal assault weapon.

Blasko entered a Pre-Trial Intervention program and the charges were eventually all dismissed. Moreover, the state later acknowledged that the alleged “assault weapons” were not in fact assault weapons as covered by NJ law. Following the dismissal of the charges, Blasko requested his firearms back.

The Superior Court in Passaic County denied Blasko’s request and ordered him to surrender his Firearms Purchaser Identification Card. They also permitted the State of New Jersey to sell his seized firearms and ammunition. The trial judge said that because Blasko’s firearms were “in plain view, accessible to a third party” his conduct was contrary to the public health, safety, and welfare which is a disqualifying factor for gun ownership in NJ. It should be noted that Mr. Blasko’s apartment was in a building that had locked access and that only the super had a key with which to enter his apartment (with prior notice and permission).

[T]he police report shows that Blasko kept his firearms in an extremely negligent and unsafe manner because he kept dozens of unsecured firearms and abundant ammunition in plain view in his apartment. . . . [He] chose to store these items in this manner knowing that his apartment was never truly “locked” since the building superintendent had a master key that he was permitted to use (or give to a maintenance worker to use) at any time even if [he] was not home. [He] in fact signed an agreement which permitted such access.

The Appellate Division examined all the instances that allowed for the forfeiture of firearms in NJ based upon negligent conduct. They found that Mr. Blasko’s past behavior and conduct did not rise to the level of negligence as needed by the law to seize his firearms.

The facts at hand present none of the circumstances found in the prior authorities to result in disqualification under N.J.S.A. 2C:58-3c(5). No weapon was discharged as found in Cunningham; no possession of narcotics occurred as cited in Sbitani; no domestic violence, drunkenness, or criminal conduct while intoxicated (assault, hit and run, and DWI) existed as relied upon in Freysinger, or a disregard of the gun laws as found in Osworth. Here, after eliminating the erroneous finding that Blasko possessed an assault rifle, the remaining facts 13 A-3848-10T2 underpinning the trial judge’s conclusion Blasko was disqualified under N.J.S.A. 2C:58-3c(5) were that he owned a significant arsenal of weapons, which were strewn haphazardly in his small studio apartment.

The court then examined whether New Jersey law required Mr. Blasko to keep his firearms locked up in a safe or with other devices such as a trigger lock. More importantly, they examined this in the context of the US Supreme Court’s rulings in Heller and McDonald. They concluded safe storage laws did not apply to Mr. Blasko as he was neither a commercial enterprise nor did he have minor children. They also concluded that based upon the Heller decision he was allowed to have his firearms accessible.

Despite a preference for the safe storage of weapons with safety locks, we conclude a law abiding adult, living alone without children, who openly leaves weapons in a locked apartment, insufficiently supports a finding of conduct contrary to the interest of the public health, safety or welfare pursuant to N.J.S.A. 2C:58-3c(5). See Heller, supra, 554 U.S. at 635, 128 S. Ct. at 2822, 171 L. Ed. 2d at 683 (holding “the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment.

Mr. Blasko’s attorney was well-known gun law attorney Evan Nappen. More on the case can be found here. Nappen notes that this is the first time a higher court in New Jersey expressely applied the Second Amendment to a gun seizure case. This is definitely a win for gun rights in New Jersey and it was made possible by the careful building of Second Amendment case law by Alan Gura and others.