Garden Full Of Weeds

If anybody needs a living definition of stubbornness, look no further than New Jersey, where last month a federal judge granted in part a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the state’s new gun law — Chapter 131 — and the state immediately filed an appeal.

Provisions of the law, challenged by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and partners in one lawsuit, and by the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs (ANJRPC) and several citizens in another, are unconstitutional. Even Chief U.S. District Judge Renée Marie Bumb said so when she wrote, “The Constitution leaves the States some measures to combat handgun violence. 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.’ That is plainly unconstitutional.”

She noted how last year’s Supreme Court Bruen ruling required the state to bring its firearms laws into compliance with the Second Amendment. But not the Garden State; heck, no, New Jersey kept operating as if nothing had happened, sort of. The state scrapped the “justifiable need” requirement, replacing it with a “sensitive places’ restriction, and essentially declared most places in the state “sensitive.”

“Chapter 131 was the State’s response,” the judge observed in a detailed 235-page ruling, “but it went too far, becoming the kind of law that Founding Father Thomas Jefferson would have warned against since it ‘disarm[s] only those who are not inclined or determined to commit crimes [and] worsen[s] the plight of the assaulted, but improve[s] those of the assailants.’”

Gun control advocates just dislike being told “no” and they’re reluctant to give up power over people. The situation was ripped by Adam Kraut, SAF executive director and a practicing attorney based in Pennsylvania.

“After the Supreme Court decided Bruen last summer,” Kraut observed in a SAF statement, “the State of New Jersey enacted a series of restrictions that were wholly incompatible with the Constitution and disregarded the Supreme Court’s directive. It is unfortunate that a lawsuit was required in order to force the State to respect its residents’ constitutional right to bear arms. We look forward to continuing to litigate these issues in New Jersey, and across the nation, to ensure constitutional rights are not meaningless words on paper.”

To be fair, Judge Bumb did acknowledge “this Court finds that most of Chapter 131’s firearm permitting requirements are consistent with the Second Amendment. This Nation has historically disarmed dangerous individuals or individuals who could endanger the public with a firearm. With some exceptions, Chapter 131’s firearm permitting scheme generally adheres to that historical tradition and aims to keep firearms out of the hands of those who could harm the public.”

True Then, True Now

Judge Bumb’s lengthy opinion is one very long read. A lot of thought went into it, and so did a lot of common sense.

At one point, she quoted Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria’s “False Ideas of Utility” in which he stated, “Laws that prohibit the carrying of arms … disarm only those who are not inclined or determined to commit crimes … These laws worsen the plight of the assaulted, but improve those of the assailants. They do not lessen homicides, but increase them, because the confidence of carrying out an assault against the disarmed is greater than against the armed. These laws are not preventive ones, but born out of the fear of crime.”

Judge Bumb then noted, “Those words rang true then. They ring true today. 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.”

Apparently, New Jersey politicians think otherwise, so we’re going to watch this melodrama unfold in the federal courts. If the legal challenge prevails, it’s safe to predict the state will be dragged kicking and screaming into the post-Bruen 21st Century.

Near the end of her opinion, Judge Bumb made this observation: “Bruen required the State to bring its firearm laws in compliance with the Second Amendment. Chapter 131 was the State’s response, but it went too far, becoming the kind of law that Founding Father Thomas Jefferson would have warned against since it ‘disarm[s] only those who are not inclined or determined to commit crimes [and] worsen[s] the plight of the assaulted, but improve[s] those of the assailants.’”

Here’s what SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb said about that: “Judge Bumb’s ruling clearly recognizes the issues we raised with New Jersey’s restrictive gun law, and she’s fired a legal shot across the state’s bow. When New Jersey passed Chapter 131, it did away with the ‘justifiable need’ requirement, but replaced it with an equally egregious ‘sensitive places’ restriction to effectively prohibit carrying a legally-licensed handgun anywhere in the state. That just doesn’t pass the smell test.”

SAF is joined in this case by the Coalition of New Jersey Firearm Owners, New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Firearms Policy Coalition and three private citizens, Nicholas Gaudio, Jeffrey Muller and Ronald Koons, the latter for whom the case, Koons v. Platkin, is named. They are represented by attorney David Jensen of Beacon, New York.

Your Tax Money at Work

Here’s a bit of news that seems to have been overlooked by a lot of folks.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) recently sent a letter to President Joe Biden and Congress alerting them to “substantial waste, mismanagement, and unlawful employment practices” at the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Yeah, that ATF.

Want to read the letter? Here’s a link.

According to the OSC, two whistleblowers from ATF’s human resources office revealed how the agency “unlawfully provided law enforcement pay and benefits to agents and investigators who filled non-law-enforcement positions, such as in human resources.” They said the positions in question “had been intentionally misclassified to be within the law enforcement job series.”

How much are we talking about? How’s somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million over the course of five years?

“In total,” the OSC said in a statement, “108 employees were found to be in non-law-enforcement positions who were improperly provided Law Enforcement Availability Pay (LEAP) and enhanced retirement benefits, although ATF continues to contest the designation of some of the positions as misclassified.”

ATF started updating position descriptions to accurately reflect job duties, OSC said. As of this past March, “36 of the employees who held misclassified positions had been reassigned and another 14 had retired.” ATF’s Internal Affairs Division was investigating the circumstances surrounding the implementation of the illegal policies and practices last month.

Here’s what Special Counsel Henry J. Kerner said, which isn’t all that reassuring: “While I find the report to be reasonable, progress toward full resolution has been slow, which may be attributable to the long-standing nature of the problems and the entrenched culture reinforcing ATF’s practices. I am pleased that OPM continues to monitor progress in implementing required corrective actions, and I urge ATF’s internal affairs to hold the responsible parties accountable.” 

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