A federal appeals court Friday ruled New Jersey’s ban on AR-15 rifles and magazines holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition is unconstitutional.
The decision by the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the first time a federal appeals court has ruled that a state’s ban on so-called assault weapons violates the Second Amendment, which guarantees the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.
New Jersey will likely seek a delay in lifting the ban, keeping AR-15s off the gunshop shelves, while the ruling undergoes further review.
The issue is also before the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed last month to review rulings that upheld similar prohibitions against the popular style of semiautomatic rifles in Illinois and Connecticut.
Ten of the federal appeals court’s 15 judges joined the judgment invalidating the New Jersey law.
The court held that a “weapon ’in common use for lawful purposes’ cannot be ’dangerous and unusual’” and that “many millions of semi-automatic rifles in circulation for lawful purposes are plainly in common use.”
The ruling was based on the 2022 Supreme Court’s landmark decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which struck down New York’s restrictive concealed-carry law and set the “common use” standard that dictates Second Amendment protections for weapons commonly possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.
The dissenting opinion said the court’s majority “disregards New Jersey’s decision to align its firearm regulations with the deeply rooted regulatory tradition. … And in departing from this consensus, the majority isolates us as the only Court of Appeals in the Nation to afford constitutional protection to AR-15s and LCMs.”
The challenges to the New Jersey law were brought by the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, the Firearms Policy Coalition and individual gun owners.
John Commerford, executive director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, called the ruling a “historic victory for the NRA, the Second Amendment, and law-abiding Americans.”
He said it affirmed “what we’ve always known: the right to keep and bear arms, including commonly-owned rifles and standard-capacity magazines, is fundamental and cannot be infringed by politicians who prioritize control over constitutional freedoms.”
“This ruling protects the rights of millions of responsible gun owners in the Garden State and serves as another benchmark in our efforts to dismantle gun control across the country.”
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