The gun control lobby has suffered yet another legal setback. In their single-minded zeal to disarm American citizens, the anti-gunners seem unwilling or unable to accept that you can’t deny people their constitutional rights without eventually having to answer for it. On July 17, New Jersey’s ban on so-called assault weapons, which has been in place for a staggering 36 years, was struck down by the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals in a 10-5 decision.
The appeals court upheld an earlier lower court ruling that the state law enacted in 1990 was unconstitutional.
The 3rd Circuit went even further than the lower court, though. It held that New Jersey has violated the Constitution by also banning a range of semi-automatic handguns and shotguns, as well as standard-capacity magazines – the ones gun control advocates refer to as “high capacity.” The 1990 law only permitted magazines that held 15 or fewer rounds. In 2018, the state lowered that legal limit to ten.
The lower court ruling had left in place the ban on these magazines.
What Are Assault Weapons – And What Aren’t They?
Anti-Second Amendment activists have for decades branded military-style modern sporting rifles as assault weapons to illicit an emotional response. It was never accurate. Contrary to what some gun rights groups claim, the term "assault weapon" was not coined by anti-gunners, though. It has been used in some circles since at least the early 1970s and was likely created within the news media. “Assault rifle” is, or was, a term used to describe a battle rifle with select-fire capabilities, as nearly all modern military rifles have – the ability to fire single shots or automatic bursts.
Still, the gun control lobby hijacked the moniker and applied it incorrectly to civilian versions of Armalite and Kalashnikov rifles and the many variants designed around those platforms.
New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, who lost the case, bizarrely claimed that the 3rd Circuit Court’s decision was “as unfortunate as it is legally incorrect.” Davenport apparently believes the justice system works on a sort of majority consensus – that because “Every other federal circuit court to consider the issue has come out the other way,” the 3rd Circuit must be wrong.
Anti-Gunners on the Back Foot
The most senior court in the US, though, has already held that firearms restrictions should honor "this nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation." Since commercially available modern sporting rifles – the dreaded assault weapons – have been in common use for decades, and since the ownership of rifles by civilians has traditionally been a widely accepted feature of American life, Davenport is not correct in her assertion.
The Supreme Court will finally take up two challenges to assault weapons bans in other states when it reconvenes in early October – though a final opinion on those cases could still be several months beyond that. New Jersey’s ban has stood for as long as it has because no opinions had come down from the Supreme Court that opened the way for legal challenges – until the 2022 New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen case. That – and the earlier Heller case – opened the door to a stream of lawsuits targeting various anti-gun laws across the US. The anti-gun lobby has been on the back foot ever since.
Still, the Second Amendment, by definition, has the same status as all other constitutional rights. The fact that its defenders constantly need legal rulings to uphold this particular right is, itself, a problem. After all, do not public officials swear oaths to uphold the Constitution – not just parts of it, but all of it?
