TRENTON, N.J. — It’s been just over four years since the historic NYSRPA v. Bruen decision was handed down from the U.S. Supreme Court. How have New Jersey’s policies and laws been since?
Not long after the decision came down, New Jersey, much like New York, expeditiously put together, passed, and enacted a “Bruen-response law.” Many of the things that New Jersey lawmakers instituted made the carriage of firearms and obtaining of permits much harder for those newly repatriated with the right to carry. That’s all on top of the decades of infringing policies and laws already on the books.
Subjective Standards
One of the number one things that plagues gun owners and/or would-be-gun owners concerning permitting is a relic in New Jersey’s law. Not only did this relic not get removed from the books post-Bruen, the legislature actually “enhanced” the statute.
Bruen noted that the shall-issue permitting regimes that existed at the time were likely “designed to ensure only that those bearing arms in the jurisdiction are, in fact, ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens.'” That said, those regimes should “contain only ‘narrow, objective, and definite standards’ guiding licensing officials.” It’s further noted that the permitting standards are to exclude the “appraisal of facts, the exercise of judgment, and the formation of an opinion.”
The subjective standard that still persists in New Jersey is applied to the issuance of all firearm-related permits: firearms purchaser identification cards, permits to purchase a handgun, and permits to carry. NJ Rev Stat § 2C:58-3.c.(5) is where the subjective standard is located in New Jersey law.
Prior to the Bruen-response law being passed, the issuance of firearm-related permits could be denied by the issuing authority “to any person where the issuance would not be in the interest of the public health, safety or welfare.” Post-Bruen, New Jersey lawmakers added to the law an additional qualifier: “Because the person is found to be lacking the essential character of temperament necessary to be entrusted with a firearm.”
The subjective standard in NJ Rev Stat § 2C:58-3.c.(5) now reads in full that “A handgun purchase permit or firearms purchaser identification card shall not be issued … To any person 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.”
The #1 Denial Reason in Permit-to-Carry Applications
In the post-Bruen timeframe, there have been 111,865 applications for permits to carry. Of those applications, 111,374 have been approved, and 488 have been denied. Looking at those denials, 301 of the post-Bruen denials have been due to “public health, safety or welfare.” That means that approximately 62 percent of permit-to-carry denials are under the subjective standard. These statistics are as of Aug. 2026 from the attorney general’s Permit to Carry Dashboard.
In order to get a permit to carry, an applicant must first have obtained a firearms purchaser identification card. Presumably, a person seeking to carry a handgun must also have applied for and been granted a permit to purchase a handgun.
An applicant who has decided to purchase and carry a handgun may have gone through the vetting process up to three times, which includes multiple background checks. If an individual goes through the process in stages, they would have already undergone the public health, safety, or welfare two times prior to applying for a permit to carry. If an applicant applies for a permit to purchase at the time they’ve applied for a firearms purchaser identification card, they’ve gone through it once prior to seeking a carry permit.
In essence, any applicant who has in their possession a firearms purchaser identification card should not be denied a permit to carry – otherwise, the issuing authority should have moved to have the FPIC revoked if an individual is no longer eligible.
Race and Permits to Carry
In 2024, it was revealed that Black applicants were being denied more than double their white counterparts using the 2C:58-3.c.(5) subjective standard. When the same data was looked at by a not-for-profit, Rise Against Hate, they normalized it. Once the data was examined, Rise Against Hate found that Black applicants were denied 10 times more than white and in Ocean County, a Black person was 50 times more likely to be denied than a white person.
Per the current data, of the 301 post-Bruen subjective denials, 103 of them were to Black applicants. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s July 2025 population estimates there are 9,548,215 residents in New Jersey. Blacks make up 15.8 percent of New Jersey’s population; however, they make up 34 percent of all the subjective denials. White (non-Hispanic white) people make up 66.8 percent of the population and only have 52 subjective denials in the post-Bruen era.
To calculate the denial rate based on race, we use the following calculations:
- (103 Black subjective denials / 111,865 total applications) = .0092 Black denial rate
- (52 white subjective denials / 111,865 total applications) = .0005 white denial rate
Since the populations of white people versus Black are greatly different, the following calculation normalizes the rates to account for those differences:
- (.0087 Black denial rate / 15.8% Black population in N.J.) * 100,000 = 55 normalized Black denial rate
- (.0005 white denial rate / 66.8% white population in N.J.) * 100,000 = 7 normalized white denial rate
To establish the ratio – which a result of 1 would indicate no instances of perceived racial disparity – the following calculation is used:
- 55 normalized Black denial rate / 7 normalized white denial rate = 7.86 ratio of Black denials over white
According to these calculations, Black people are denied via a subjective standard eight times more than white people in post-Bruen permit-to-carry applications.
These numbers are based solely on the data available from the attorney general’s dashboard, where Rise Against Hate’s 2025 study utilized information they gathered in 2024 on a county-by-county basis directly from each county. Rise Against Hate looked at data that was available on pre-Bruen applications, while this rate is only on post-Bruen applications.
In the nearly two years since Rise Against Hate’s study, the rate of perceived racial bias only differs by 2; however, we again need to account for pre-Bruen factors which may have affected their findings.
A rate showing Black subjective denials are eight times more than their white counterparts is still worthy of scrutiny and further investigation.
Permit-to-Carry Data
The reason there’s so much data on permit-to-carry holders is that former Attorney General Matthew Platkin ordered the collection and sharing of this data. While information on firearm-related permitting and statistics is alleged to be protected from disclosure via New Jersey law under N.J. Admin. Code § 13:54-1.15, it was Platkin’s order to share this information publicly. Platkin leaned on an exemption built into the law that notes the law does not apply to “the request of persons acting in their governmental capacities for purposes of the administration of justice.”
The June 14, 2023 directive came to fruition in 2024. Post-2024 is when the analyses were done of the data. That’s when it was revealed that applicants were subjected to excessive wait times in the application determinations, that the aforementioned subjective standard was being used to deny permit applications, as well as the perceived racial bias in permit denials.
Where There’s a Lack of Data
An issue with the Permit to Carry Dashboard is that it’s limited in scope.
One, the dataset precludes retired police officer permit-to-carry data. Two, the number of permits to carry is only a small piece of the picture – there’s no database or breakdown on the number of firearms purchaser identification card holders and/or permit to purchase a handgun recipients.
Any request for anonymized data on FPIC and/or PTP applications, which are not stated to be specifically protected under the law, would likely be denied under the same.
The lack of data as well as the perceived racial bias in New Jersey’s permitting regime moved lawmakers during the last legislative session to introduce a bill that would address some of these issues. The same bill was reintroduced as Assembly Bill 222 this session and would require the reporting of denials of firearm-related licenses and other statistical data.
What would be required to be collected and reported on includes: date of application, county and municipality, year of birth, race, ethnicity, and gender identity of applicants. Whether or not a given application was approved or denied would be included with reason(s) for any denials.
Red Flag Laws
The topic of so-called red flag laws is quite contentious in the Garden State. There were no large post-Bruen responses to how extreme risk protective orders are handled and/or executed in New Jersey, but the unconstitutionality of them must be highlighted. The current law exists in a way that there’s a complete lack of due process for those who are being affected by one such seizure order.
Individuals affected by such orders are not given a chance to face their accuser prior to any potential actions. These hearings are held ex parte, and often those getting their firearms seized don’t know until the police knock on their door to confiscate their arms.
Previously reported, New Jersey is a recipient of a grant from the Department of Justice in promotion of red flag seizures. It’s under the Biden-era Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that makes these funds available.
The issue with New Jersey receiving these funds comes from protections that are supposedly built into the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The law specifically states that recipients of such grants have “extreme risk protection order programs, which must include, at a minimum … pre-deprivation and post-deprivation due process rights that prevent any violation or infringement of the Constitution of the United States, including but not limited to the Bill of Rights, and the substantive or procedural due process rights guaranteed under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as applied to the States, and as interpreted by State courts and United States courts (including the Supreme Court of the United States). Such programs must include, at the appropriate phase to prevent any violation of constitutional rights, at minimum, notice, the right to an in-person hearing, an unbiased adjudicator, the right to know opposing evidence, the right to present evidence, and the right to confront adverse witnesses.”
There are other due process protections mentioned in the law that recipients are supposed to adhere to in order to meet the eligibility requirements. Whether or not New Jersey’s draconian red flag law meets that definition has not been determined; however, it’s not likely.
Draconian Penalties
The U.S. Supreme Court has many times affirmed that the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental and individual right. In New Jersey, firearm ownership and possession is treated like a privilege that the government grants. Aside from the volumes of laws, the real issue is the draconian penalties attached to them.
Through what’s called the Graves Act, there are minimum-mandatory sentences for those convicted of breaking any given firearm-related law. A three- to five-year felony sentence is one of the most common penalties those convicted may face.
If the possession of a firearm is constitutionally protected, breaking any of the transportation, possession, and/or ownership laws is simply a paperwork violation – a civil penalty no different than a minor traffic violation. (That is, if there are going to be such laws governing firearm possession.)
To add more insult to injury, provisions in New Jersey law were changed to remove cash bail for people who break certain firearm-related laws based on prosecutorial discretion. Someone who inadvertently travels with their firearm outside of what’s considered a “reasonable deviation” in the course of their travel can be treated worse than a sex offender.
These penalties arguably amount to violations of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The question to ask is: How can a clerical or minor error in regulations related to a civil right amount to a felony charge and complete loss of liberty?
Another way to approach this scenario could be: If in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, something as small and simple as a $1.50 poll tax was found unconstitutional, how can the State of New Jersey justify imprisoning someone for three to five years – minimum mandatory – if they are possessing a firearm outside of narrow exemptions without any criminal intent?
Some Ways to End up in Jail in the Garden State
There are many ways people can get caught up and ensnared by these laws. Some regulations that would result in draconian penalties and/or permit denials in New Jersey:
- Possession outside of exemptions in the law/in so-called sensitive locations
- Possession of hollow nose ammunition outside of exemptions
- The transfer of a firearm to another individual outside of the narrow exemptions
- Possessing a magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds
- Possessing a semi-automatic rifle with more than two so-called evil features
- Having a firearm on the grounds of a school, including the parking lot
- The accidental discharge of a firearm
- Voluntarily committing oneself for psychiatric care
- Receiving any sort of psychiatric or therapeutic help can result in license denials/revocations
Other Crazy Regulations
The people in New Jersey have to deal with many other crazy regulations. This is not an exhaustive list:
- One handgun a month purchase cap
- Excessive fees for permits
- One week waiting period for the issuance of handgun purchase permits
- Timelines – which are excessively long – for authorities to issue permits that have no penalties if not adhered to
- The need to have up to three (or more) permits/licenses to exercise one right
- Lack of reciprocity for those traveling into New Jersey
- If firearms are not returned after any type of domestic violence scenario – including those seized under false allegations or victims of DV – individuals are barred from firearm ownership forever in the entire country
- Social media posts affecting the issuance of permits to carry (currently enjoined)
- A public nuisance law where “industry” members can be civilly sued if the state does not think their actions were “responsible” regardless of legality
- Confiscation of arms due to a family member’s actions
- A broken expungement system that has caused (costly) licensing issues for many applicants
- A cost-prohibitive mental health records expungement system
- The need for four references to get a permit to carry
- And, much, much more…
Overall Grade
New Jersey has not handled NYSRPA v. Bruen gracefully. Not only have they not used the post-Bruen era as an opportunity to clean up many laws that need to be tossed, they doubled and tripled down. New Jersey officials have tried every way possible to skirt what the high court handed down.
In response to the behavior of all three branches of government in New Jersey, citizens and gun owners have become more engaged than ever. Measures such as the permit-to-carry fee nullification movement – championed by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the New Jersey Firearms Owners Syndicate, and National Rifle Association ILA – have taken hold, and citizen involvement is at an all-time high.
There are a number of active lawsuits in New Jersey, some with very significant wins, and the flow of more challenges does not seem to be slowing.
“New Jersey may have been the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights, but it is the last to recognize it,” founder of the Second Amendment Foundation and chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Alan Gottlieb said during a 2021 interview. The U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right; New Jersey officials may not like it, but they do need to recognize it.
