Good News for Gun Rights From Unlikely Places

The issue of gun rights is finally moving to the front burner. As evidence, an onerous and unconstitutional New Jersey gun law is slowly but surely being dismantled by a federal judge even before it goes into effect. This is yet another example of the historic reach of the landmark US Supreme Court ruling in Bruen v. New York State Rifle Association. Not only is the Garden State measure being gutted, but former President Barack Obama recently made out-of-character remarks about firearms that Second Amendment advocates will find more than a bit surprising.

Gun Rights – Hold Your Horses There, Big Fella

On May 16, US District Judge Renée Marie Bumb threw the kitchen sink at a sweeping gun control measure that was to take effect July 1 in the Garden State.

The judge issued preliminary injunctions "that lift the state's ban on firearms at zoos, film sets, public gatherings, medical offices, and airports' pickup/dropoff areas," according to the New Jersey Monitor. She took aim at some other truly outrageous provisions that would have severely limited residents' ability to obtain a firearms including having to obtain liability insurance that would effectively limit firearm ownership to only those with means.

The law required gun owners to demonstrate a "justifiable need" to carry outside their homes and businesses. As well, it mandated personal character references from others who would need to show up for "in-person interviews."

Nevertheless, the judge put the hammer down: In her 200-plus page opinion, Bumb asserted, "Clearly, the state disagrees with Bruen, but it cannot disobey the Supreme Court by declaring most of New Jersey off limits for law-abiding citizens who have the constitutional right to armed self-defense."

In a section of the ruling, her honor took the legislators to task for regulating the purchase of a firearm and the right to carry in so many places. “[T]he Court echoes the many decisions finding that deprivation of a right otherwise secured by the Second Amendment is ‘not easily remediable by monetary damages or other non-injunctive relief.’" Her conclusion was as clear as Steuben glass:

"The Constitution leaves the States ‘some measures’ to combat handgun violence. Id. at 636. But what the Second Amendment prohibits the States from doing, and what the State of New Jersey has done here with much of Chapter 131, is to ‘prevent[] law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms.’ Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2156. That is plainly unconstitutional.’"

Meanwhile, Back at the Obama Ranch

In an astonishing statement, Obama told Nate Burleson of CBS, "We have to also actively reach out to communities where gun ownership is an important tradition, right?" The mere fact that the former president recognizes that gun ownership is an "important tradition" in the United States is an amazing admission from the man who once famously said working-class Americans "cling to their guns and religion" for security. Obama made another surprising point: Gun control is "not an either/or question – either we eliminate all guns, or there's nothing we can do about violence. It's a recognition [that] it's a both/and problem."

There's no getting around the fact that a sea-change is underway regarding gun rights in America, and much of it concerns the High Court's Bruen decision. It is welcome news that inhibits lawmakers from producing legislation that hinders an American's right to keep and bear arms.