https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca3.123103/gov.uscourts.ca3.123103.125.0.pdf

NJ Assault Rifle Ban Struck, Sending Circuit Split to SCOTUS

The Supreme Court will have to contend with dueling rulings from federal circuit courts when it considers whether the US Constitution includes a right to own assault rifles next term, thanks to a decision issued Friday.

New Jersey can’t stop residents from purchasing semi-automatic rifles and magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled, splitting with decisions upholding bans in other circuits.

Under the US Supreme Court’s text, history, and tradition test states can’t ban firearms or magazines that they perceive to be “unusually dangerous” if the firearms are in common use for lawful purposes, a majority of the full Third Circuit said. Instead, states must respect the intent of gun owners — millions of whom have purchased assault rifles and large magazines.

“One dissent says this amounts to ‘a popularity poll,” Judge Arianna Julia Freeman said, writing for the majority. “But we must abide by Supreme Court authority saying governments cannot ‘restrict the public carry of weapons that are unquestionably in common use today.”

The nation’s highest court in June announced that it was going to take appeals of rulings upholding assault rifle bans in Illinois and Connecticut, two of more than one dozen such regulations across the country. That decision came days after the conservative majority bolstered the ability of gun owners to challenge state restrictions.

“Today’s decision from the Third Circuit invalidating New Jersey’s careful laws restricting the AR-15 and large capacity magazines is as unfortunate as it is legally incorrect,” New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport (D) said in a statement. “Every other federal circuit court to consider the issue has come out the other way. Assault weapons and large capacity magazines play a dangerous role in the modern epidemic of mass shootings, and New Jersey acted reasonably and lawfully in restricting them.”

The National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action issued a statement praising the ruling, which they said “protects the rights of millions of responsible gun owners in the Garden State and serves as another benchmark in our efforts to dismantle gun control across the country.”

Trump Appointees

The case followed an unusual path to this decision, with two recent appointees of President Donald Trump coming down on the side of Second Amendment rights.

The circuit scrapped a three-judge panel which held an argument last July considering the plaintiffs’ claims. Without waiting for a decision, the broader court voted to hear the case en banc last October, giving new appointees Emil Bove and Jennifer Mascott a seat at the en banc argument. Bove was part of the majority, Mascott filed a concurrence.

The majority opinion and concurrences highlighted gun owners’ enhanced ability to challenge firearm restrictions under the Supreme Court’s Wolford v. Lopez ruling that struck a Hawaii law prohibiting the carry of guns onto private property without the property owners’ consent.

Before that ruling, states had to justify their restrictions with examples of regulations from the nation’s founding and mid-1800s that approximated the modern-day gun regulation.

Now that’s not enough. States must also show historic analogs held the same reasoning for the restriction. The Third Circuit majority said New Jersey had to mostly rely on weapon regulations from the founding of the United States, and those fell short.

The state’s examples, which also included regulations from the 1800s about Bowie knives and pistols, “are insufficiently analogous for two reasons: They are too late in time, and none enacted an outright ban on a class of weapons in common use for lawful purposes,” Freeman said.

Foreshadowing Future Fights

With the Supreme Court primed to take on this issue, some judges issued warnings about how judge-made tests could alter the face of litigation or impact how states write their laws.

A dissent penned by Judge Patty Shwartz raised concerns that limiting state authority based on the popularity of firearms could prohibit governments from regulating guns that become a danger to society once they’re widely in circulation. She pointed to difficulties in applying the high court’s tests and where states and local governments can step in to protect citizens from gun violence.

“Under the majority’s logic, a ban on any weapon would violate the Second Amendment, so long as manufacturers sold and distributed the weapon faster than legislatures could respond and prospective owners reported that they considered the weapon to be useful for self-defense, hunting, target practice, or the like,” Shwartz said. “At every step, this logic strays from common sense and Supreme Court guidance, with devastating consequences.”

In her concurrence, Mascott said she wouldn’t go as far as the majority and require historic analogues from the founding era. However, she cautioned against states reading too much into the safe and dangerous categories the majority seemed to be drawing.

“I would not go so far as the majority opinion in cementing the label ‘dangerous and unusual’ uses of firearms as ‘mutually exclusive’ of firearms that are ‘in common use for lawful purposes,’” she said.

Turning that “designation into an antitype risks signaling to assertive State regulators that establishing a Second Amendment basis for regulation can be accomplished simply by labeling a firearm use ‘dangerous and unusual,’” she said.

The case was remanded back for the US District Court for the District of New Jersey to determine whether other state-banned categories of firearms — beyond semi-automatic rifles — were also unconstitutional under the Third Circuit’s ruling.

Clement & Murphy PLLC, Cooper & Kirk and Cleary Giacobbe Alfieri & Jacobs represent the firearm owners. The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office represents the state.

The cases are: Ass’n of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs v. Att’y Gen. New Jersey, 3d Cir., No. 24-02415, 7/17/26.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/nj-assault-rifle-large-magazine-bans-nullified-by-appeals-court

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5883624&forum_id=2#50006979)

*says prayer for health of Alito, Thomas, Kav, and Goresuch*

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5883624&forum_id=2#50006990)