New Jersey’s ban on AR-15 rifles is unconstitutional, federal judge says

TRENTON, NJ — New Jersey’s ban on the AR-15 rifle is unconstitutional, but the state’s limit on magazines holding more than 10 rounds is constitutional, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

In his 69-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Peter Sheridan said he was compelled to rule as he did because of the Supreme Court’s rulings in firearms cases, particularly the 2022 Bruen decision who expanded gun rights.

Sheridan’s ruling left both the Second Amendment advocates and the state’s attorney general free to plan appeals. The judge temporarily stayed the order for 30 days.

Sheridan pointed to Supreme Court precedents and suggested that Congress and the president could do more to address gun violence across the country.

“It is difficult to accept the Supreme Court’s ruling that certain gun policy choices are ‘unacceptable’ when radical individuals often possess and use these firearms for nefarious purposes,” he wrote.

Sheridan added: “Where the Supreme Court has established the law of our nation, I, as a lower court, am obligated to follow it. … This principle — combined with the reckless inaction of our government leaders to address the mass shootings that are plaguing our nation — makes the Court’s decision imperative.”

Nine other states and the District of Columbia have laws similar to New Jersey’s, covering New York, Los Angeles and other major cities, as well as sites of massacres, such as the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and six adults were killed by a gunman armed with an AR-15one of the firearms commonly regarded as an offensive weapon.

“Bannings on so-called ‘assault weapons’ are immoral and unconstitutional. FPC will continue to fight until all such bans are repealed in the United States,” said Brandon Combs, president of the Firearms Police Coalition, one of the plaintiffs.

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin said the ruling endangers public safety.

“The AR-15 is a tool designed for warfare that inflicts catastrophic mass injury, and it is the weapon of choice for the epidemic of mass shootings that have ravaged so many communities in this country,” he said.

He added: “We look forward to presenting our arguments on appeal.”

The Bruen decision is cited in several objections to states’ bans on assault rifles.

New Jersey has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, particularly under Democratic Governor Phil Murphy, who has signed a number of measures into law, including the ban on large warehouses in 2018 central to this week’s ruling. More measures Murphy signed in 2022 include allowing the attorney general to use the state’s public nuisance law to sue gun manufacturers. A message seeking comment was left Wednesday with a spokesman for the governor.

The state’s assault weapons ban dates to 1990 and includes several other weapons, but Sheridan focused on the AR-15, citing the plaintiffs’ concentration on that weapon in their court filings. The high-capacity magazine bill Murphy signed into law lowered the limit from 15 to 10 rounds, over the opposition of Second Amendment advocates. The bill’s sponsors said it was aimed at reducing the risk of mass casualties in mass shootings.

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Lindsay Whitehurst, an Associated Press reporter in Washington, contributed.