Stripped of Your Second Amendment Rights for Saying Mean Things?

The United States Supreme Court has issued majority opinions favoring Second Amendment rights in a couple of relatively recent high-profile cases – New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen (2022) and District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). In response to those rulings, anti-gun officials, mostly in Democrat-controlled states, have conspired to come up with other ways to deny ordinary Americans their Second Amendment rights.

A New Jersey law that allows licensing officials to arbitrarily prevent someone from obtaining a Firearms Purchaser Identification Card (FPIC) is now being challenged. Critics say the law is so blatantly flawed, in addition to being unconstitutional, that it shouldn’t even survive long enough to make it to the highest court.

It looks as though the case may at least end up at the New Jersey Supreme Court, though.

Free Speech and Second Amendment Rights

A man identified only as A.A.R. was denied a New Jersey FPIC because a licensing official decided that certain offensive remarks the man had been known to have made were disqualifying.

In the most basic terms, Bruen established that a state can only reject applications for concealed carry permits – or any other firearms permit the state requires – if the applicant is someone who cannot legally own a firearm because they have a criminal history demonstrating they are a potential danger to others. In a manner of speaking, it’s a matter of checking boxes “yes” or “no” to determine eligibility, rather than an official simply deciding the application shouldn’t be granted.

However, N.J.S.A. 2C:58-3(c)(5) says an FPIC can be denied “where the issuance would not be in the interest of the public health, safety or welfare because the person is found to be lacking the essential character of temperament necessary to be entrusted with a firearm.”

Basically, if the licensing official feels you are not the type of person who should be in possession of a gun, you can’t buy one. A.A.R. is apparently an individual known for harboring certain prejudices and for expressing “racist and sexist views.”

Still, offensive, appalling, reprehensible, or whatever else the man’s expressed opinions are, they are protected by the First Amendment. Nevertheless, a lower court upheld A.A.R.’s FPIC rejection. Punishing him for his speech by withholding the right to legally purchase a firearm in New Jersey violates A.A.R.’s First and Second Amendment rights.

A State Law That Defies the Supreme Court

A.A.R. has firearms permits issued by ten other states, some of which are not at all supportive of Second Amendment rights. Clearly, then, the man is not a criminal, nor is he considered by any of those ten other states to be a public danger, regardless of what objectionable views he holds.

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In another Second Amendment case, United States v. Hemani (2026), the Supreme Court ruled that Ali Danial Hemani, a recreational user of marijuana, could not be prohibited from possessing firearms because marijuana users are not “categorically and unusually dangerous.” Additionally, the allegation that Hemani had ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps – designated a terrorist organization by the US government – was immaterial.

Therefore, the Supreme Court has already established that “objective dangerousness is the only appropriate grounds for disarmament,” as the Second Amendment Foundation put it in an amicus brief that urges the New Jersey Supreme Court to hear A.A.R.’s challenge to his disqualification. Additionally, the Supreme Court has ruled – in Hemani and several other cases – that even objectionable or offensive speech is protected.

It remains to be seen whether the state’s Supreme Court will take up the case. If it does, it would seem just about inconceivable that the decision would not go A.A.R.’s way. And in that case, the next stop would be the US Supreme Court. It could also decline to hear the case, which could produce the same end result. Either way, such a blatant and arbitrary (or perhaps politically motivated) violation of a citizen’s First and Second Amendment rights should not go unchallenged.