Prominent federal and state gun rights groups are suing New Jersey over its concealed carry law.
The National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action and the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the state of New Jersey, alleging that the state’s concealed carry law denies law-abiding gun owners the right to a concealed carry permit.
In what appears to be a move to take their case to the newly established conservative Supreme Court after it rejected a slew of Second Amendment cases last June, the NRA looks ready for another legal challenge.
“It’s outrageous that law-abiding people are being denied their right to self-defense by arbitrary means,” said Amy Hunter, a spokeswoman for the NRA, in a press statement. “Statistics show that self-defense situations come up quickly and without warning. Time and time again, we hear stories about good people who have saved lives because they were carrying a firearm. The state of New Jersey has no reason to deny law-abiding citizens their constitutional rights.”
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, the case is Mazahreh v. Grewal. One of the plaintiffs is said to be a firearms instructor with a current federal and New Jersey firearms retail license who attempted to apply for a concealed carry license but was told not to bother because it would not be issued.
House Republicans, while still in the majority, passed the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act in 2018, but Senate Republicans failed to take up the legislation. Going into a new Democratic presidential administration, Second Amendment activists, along with Republicans, are seeking legal pathways to secure gun rights.
Thirty-five states largely mandate civilians to have concealed carry permits in order to carry firearms in public. However, eight states, including New Jersey, have “may issue” laws that give the issuing authority a broad discretion to reject a carry permit to an applicant. For example, if the authority thinks the applicant lacks character or does not have a “good cause” to carry a weapon, a permit can be denied.
However, in 27 states where “shall issue” laws exist, the issuing authority has a more limited amount of discretion and is often restricted to an applicant’s criminal background check.
The “may issue” law in New Jersey requires law-abiding gun owners to show they have a justifiable need for a concealed carry permit beyond the right to self-defense. They must show that they have been threatened in a specific way, which has resulted in few New Jersey residents being issued permits.
A spokesman for New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, a Democrat, said:
“We are not going to comment on the particulars of pending litigation. However, we have consistently been successful in defending New Jersey’s commonsense firearm safety laws in the past, which protect the safety of the public and of law enforcement officers, and we will continue to do so going forward.”
