TRENTON, N.J. — Despite admitting to historically low levels of violent crime, New Jersey announced it will be targeting gun manufacturers, and this time it’s looking to take scalps, proving that the anti-gun agenda has never been about public safety, but about control and disarmament.
On Monday, August 24, the office of the New Jersey attorney general issued a press statement announcing the appointment of Philip Bangle as the next director of the Statewide Affirmative Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Office.
The mission of the office: “bringing civil enforcement actions against firearm companies to hold them accountable for violations of the law that harm the health and safety of residents.”
When New Jersey says “civil enforcement actions,” they are referring to leveraging the 2022 “Firearms Industry Public Safety Act” (N.J.S.A. 2C:58-33 to -35), also known as the “public-nuisance” statute. The measure is an end run around the protections in the federally enacted Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), a measure designed to shield gun manufacturers from specious lawsuits not relating to a defective product.
New Jersey has used the public nuisance law to target manufacturers like Glock, and to even harass federally licensed gun dealers in the state over lawful ammo sales. In fact, the statute is so easily leveraged by the state that one writer labeled it “a frivolous lawsuit machine.”
Indeed, the state used the same measure to sue a Pennsylvania retailer in July for selling parts kits which were legal under both Pennsylvania and federal law.
In case the reader is left in doubt about the state’s intentions, the person they selected to fill the role should extinguish any disbelief.
Phil Bangle has spent nearly a quarter of a century litigating on behalf of gun control groups, including most recently as the senior director of affirmative litigation at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a notoriously anti-civil liberties group likely backed by deep foreign pockets.
Whether Mr. Bangle believes in the cause or is simply a gun for hire to the highest bidder, his accolades are celebrated by the state which crowed, “Most recently, in August 2025, he secured the largest jury verdict in a contested case against a gun company in history, when a jury awarded the City of Baltimore $62 million from Hanover Armory, a firearms retailer that had flooded the city with ghost guns.”
Lacking the ability to bring criminal suits against law-abiding manufacturers and dealers, New Jersey intends to use the harassment and economic coercion angle, and they aren’t shy about declaring this tactic:
SAFE is authorized by the Attorney General to bring lawsuits against gun industry members that violate N.J.S.A. 2C:58-35 by contributing to a public nuisance in New Jersey through unlawful or unreasonable conduct, or by failing [sic] maintain reasonable controls relating to the sale, manufacturing, distribution, importing, or marketing of gun-related products. Since its establishment in 2022, SAFE has filed complaints against corporations like Sig Sauer and Glock, as well as ghost-gun sellers and firearms retailers that have violated New Jersey law.
The measure’s vague and subjective legal standards leave the state many ways to allege wrongdoings, but courts are increasingly wising up to the state’s agenda, handing the attorney general losses on numerous Second Amendment-related measures, including a Third Circuit decision striking down the state’s so-called assault weapons ban in July (an action the court itself later stayed until the Supreme Court issues a decision in an upcoming case).
The message is clear: New Jersey is taking an aggressive gun control stance that has little to do with public safety, and until a higher power steps in to correct the state, gun manufacturers and licensed dealers will face increasing scrutiny and legal action from the state, with the intent to drive out business and disarm citizens by making weapons unavailable.
