COURTS

Wall man, gun clubs, NRA seek to eliminate New Jersey's carrying restrictions

Kathleen Hopkins
Asbury Park Press

A Wall man, a statewide association of gun clubs and the National Rifle Association are taking on New Jersey’s gun laws, asking a federal court to throw out the state’s restrictions on carrying handguns in a case they hope will reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

Those who are opposed to guns should stop making the historical context argument unless they are going to apply it to all the amendments.

Thomas R. Rogers, described as a Wall businessman who services ATM machines in high-crime areas, and the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs Inc. filed a federal lawsuit Monday seeking to have what they said were New Jersey’s “draconian" gun restrictions declared unconstitutional.

The lawsuit, supported by the NRA, asserts that New Jersey’s restrictions on carrying guns violate the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

New Jersey’s law limits the right to carry firearms outside the home to those individuals who can show they have a “justifiable need" to do so, according to the lawsuit.

In order to do that, the individual “must establish specific or serious threats or previous attacks which put him in special and unavoidable danger to obtain a permit from the state to carry a firearm in public," the suit says.

The effect is “to make it wholly illegal for typical law-abiding citizens to carry handguns in public – for by definition, these ordinary citizens cannot show that they face a serious or specific, unavoidable threat that poses a special danger to their safety," the suit said.

Watch the video at the top of this story to see gun-control advocates say how they plan to shift arguments from personal liberty to public health to enact more gun restrictions.

Rogers was just such an ordinary citizen who passed the required background checks, completed required firearm training courses and met every other requirement to be eligible to obtain a permit to carry firearms in public, the suit said. But, because he cannot establish a clear and present threat to his safety, Wall Police Chief Kenneth J. Brown and Superior Court Judge Joseph W. Oxley denied his permit application, the suit said.

“That result simply cannot be squared with the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment," the suit said.

Rogers was robbed at gunpoint many years ago while working as a restaurant manager, and now runs a large ATM business for which he must frequently service ATM machines in high-crime areas, the suit said. He wants to carry a handgun in public for self-defense, but is barred from doing so, the suit said.

 Violating New Jersey’s handgun-carrying ban carries a prison term up to 10 years.

Named as defendants in the suit are state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal and Patrick J. Callahan, acting superintendent of the New Jersey State Police. Also named as defendants are Brown, Oxley, who sits in Monmouth County Superior Court, and Superior Court Judge N. Peter Conforti, who sits in Sussex County and was said to have denied a carrying permit to a member of the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs who lives in Sussex County.

State officials did not immediately respond to requests to comment on the lawsuit. The defendants have not yet filed responses to the suit. Gov. Phil Murphy, in his election campaign last year, said he would direct the Attorney General’s Office to enforce the state’s gun laws more vigorously than they had been under the administration of former Gov. Chris Christie. Murphy also vowed to sign gun-control laws that Christie vetoed.

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While federal courts have previously upheld New Jersey’s gun carrying restrictions, the lawsuit is asking the federal court in New Jersey to take a second look, in light of a recent federal court decision striking down a restriction similar to New Jersey’s in Washington, D.C., said Scott Bach, executive director of the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs.

This is the first time there has been a split among the federal circuit courts," Bach said. “That is usually when the U.S. Supreme Court gets involved.

“We fully hope and expect our case and others like it will go up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where eventually this issue will be resolved for the entire nation, once and for all," Bach said.

Kathleen Hopkins: 732-643-4202; Khopkikns@app.com