At the heart of New Jersey’s gun-control regime has been the requirement to show the local chief of police a particularized need to lawfully carry a weapon. In two recent opinions, Chief Judge Renee Bumb first temporarily restrained certain provisions, and then on Jan. 30, in the consolidated action Siegel v. Platkin, extended her TRO to block the bulk of the newly enacted A-4769. Signed by Gov. Murphy, 2C:58-4.2 is our Legislature’s revision of the centerpiece New Jersey gun-control laws to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen.  Judge Bumb effectively gutted the law, saying it is fundamentally incompatible with the high court majority’s Bruen decision. We believe her broad injunction was not necessary. The judge called for an expedited briefing schedule on the motion for a preliminary injunction. But more is needed than briefs—the state should be able to develop a full record on the public health evidence for the court to make the determination regarding the public interest, which is essential to the issuance of an injunction.

The error is rooted in senior Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion of the court, the conclusion of which six join. Two qualify their support (Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts); Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor dissented. The Bruen opinion rejected the argument that the Second Amendment allows states to balance the needs of public safety against the constitutional right to carry firearms: “The Second Amendment ’is the very product of an interest balancing by the people’ and it ‘surely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms’ for self-defense. Heller v. District of Columbia (2008). It is this balance—struck by the traditions of the American people—that demands our unqualified deference.”

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