Court upholds N.J. curb on carrying handguns
New Jersey's law requiring that residents show a "justifiable need" to get a permit to carry a handgun in public has been upheld by a federal appeals court.
New Jersey's law requiring that residents show a "justifiable need" to get a permit to carry a handgun in public has been upheld by a federal appeals court.
A mandate that residents demonstrate an "urgent necessity for self-protection" to get authorization to publicly carry a handgun does not run afoul of U.S. constitutional protections of the right to bear firearms, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled Wednesday.
"The justifiable-need standard is a long-standing regulation that enjoys presumptive constitutionality," the panel wrote.
The ruling comes more than four months after the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed a similar Second Amendment challenge to New York state's requirement that people wishing to carry a handgun in public show a special need for protection.
Alan Gura, an Alexandria, Va., lawyer who represented New Jersey residents challenging the state's gun-permit law, said his clients would appeal the panel's ruling.
"We'll ask the full court to review the decision and then potentially the U.S. Supreme Court," he said in an interview.
In the 2010 lawsuit in federal court in New Jersey, four state residents, along with the Second Amendment Foundation Inc. and the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs Inc., argued that the justifiable-need standard violated their constitutional rights.
The four residents had been denied a permit because they could not show they met the standard for carrying a gun in public. A lower-court judge threw out the suit.
The appellate judges upheld that ruling, finding the New Jersey permit law was a "presumptively lawful, long-standing regulation and therefore does not burden conduct within the scope of the Second Amendment's guarantee."
The New Jersey case is part of a gun-policy debate raging in Washington and statehouses across the country in the wake of the Dec. 14 school shooting in Newtown, Conn. The deaths of 20 first graders and six educators unleashed a flurry of legislative activity around the country, often dividing lawmakers along partisan lines.
New restrictions on guns have passed in Connecticut, New York, Colorado and Maryland, all of which are led by Democrats.
More states have moved in the opposite direction: Six states relaxed restrictions, including those on carrying guns into churches, schools or workplace parking lots.
In 1981, just three states - Maine, Washington and Vermont - let residents carry weapons in public without giving a reason. Today, about 40 states do.
