New Jersey’s Gun Laws, Already Tough, Could Soon Get Tougher

New Jersey already has gun laws that are widely considered to be among the toughest in the country. One prominent national group that promotes stricter legislation has graded New Jersey as A-minus on its scorecard of gun laws, ranking it second among states, while the National Rifle Association has lamented that “Trenton’s appetite for gun control is insatiable.”

Still, the state’s gun laws are poised to become even more stringent. Lawmakers have put forward a package of bills that would, among other things, limit the magazine capacity of guns, ban ammunition capable of penetrating body armor and require residents to demonstrate a “justifiable need” for a permit to carry a gun.

Supporters say that their efforts have been invigorated by the demonstrations in Washington and across the country over the weekend to decry gun violence, which were motivated by the deadly mass shooting last month at a Florida high school. Assemblyman Louis D. Greenwald, who supports the legislation, described the response in New Jersey as evidence that “government is listening.”

“There’s a movement that’s afoot,” Greenwald, D-Voorhees, said in an interview. “It really is, enough is enough.”

On Monday, the bills were approved in the Democratic-controlled state Assembly. They await a vote in the Senate, where Democrats also hold a majority, and the governor, Philip D. Murphy, also a Democrat, has indicated his support.

New Jersey was ranked behind only California in having the most stringent gun restrictions by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, named for Gabrielle Giffords, the former congresswoman who was gravely injured by gunfire in 2011 and survived. New York and Connecticut have similarly strong gun laws. Florida, which had been considered far less restrictive, responded to the shooting last month by passing some of its first gun-control measures in two decades, including raising the minimum age to buy a firearm to 21, banning bump stocks and allowing school employees to be armed.

Already in New Jersey, permits are required for the purchase of any handgun. Assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines have been banned, and the state prohibits people with misdemeanor domestic violence convictions or people limited by protective orders from buying or possessing a firearm.

The proposed measures, consisting of a half-dozen separate bills, would limit magazine capacity to 10 rounds and require background checks for private gun sales. The legislation would also allow for extreme risk protective orders meant to prevent people deemed to pose a significant danger from owning or buying a firearm, and it would expand the requirements of mental health providers and other medical workers to report patients to law enforcement if they are believed to pose a threat to themselves or others.

The legislation would also codify in state law the requirement of “justifiable need,” which means that an applicant would have to show that they had been subjected to attacks or threatened — “something beyond a generalized desire to have a gun in public for self-defense,” according to Allison Anderman, the managing attorney at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The measures have faced considerable opposition from gun-rights organizations, who protested in Trenton on Monday as the Assembly voted on the legislation. “We think they’re misguided and they won’t make anybody safer,” said Scott Bach, the executive director of the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs.

Bach argued that the legislation was an incursion on the Second Amendment rights of gun owners. The limits on magazine capacity would turn people who own weapons with larger capacities “into criminals with the stroke of a pen.”

He said his organization and others vowed to fight the laws in court. He viewed the effort as a reflection of lawmakers’ hostility over guns and said the proposed restrictions were part of “a constant and never-ending call for more, regardless of the facts, regardless of the circumstances.”

“Enough already,” Bach said. “Enough. Stop targeting honest citizens and instead severely punish criminals. New Jersey doesn’t get that and we think it’s because New Jersey doesn’t want to get that.”

The legislation was revived after the former governor, Chris Christie, a Republican, vetoed numerous gun control measures while he was in office, including one that would have limited magazine capacity and regulations to make it more difficult to obtain a concealed carry permit. He supported loosening the state’s restrictions, calling them “overly burdensome.”

But supporters of tougher restrictions said the measures gained new traction in recent months, bolstered by the surge in attention prompted by recent episodes of mass violence and the election of Murphy, who had campaigned on tougher gun restrictions. Murphy had also been endorsed during the campaign by Giffords.

Murphy has supported the measures in the Legislature, which he described as “common sense gun measures to protect our communities and families.”

“The people of New Jersey have demanded we act,” Murphy said in a statement on Monday, “and we must.”