The hateful New Jersey legislature can’t let a term pass without proposing some kind of new infringement on the Second Amendment, and so they did with the “Responsibility in Firearms Sales Act” whose title completely belies what the bill actually does.
Introduced on January 2, 2026 during the lame duck session by Assemblywoman Ellen J. Park (D-District 37, Bergen County), Assembly Bill A6303 is a confiscatory measure designed to financially punish firearms manufacturers and disarm residents. (The Senate companion bill, S4916, has identical provisions).
The bill claims (without evidence) that, “The people of this State have incurred undue public health costs and financial burdens from injuries and deaths as a result of the use of firearms.”
Under that framework, the bill proposes to “require the licensing of firearm manufacturers and to distribute the proceeds from the licensing fees to firearm victims.”
It defines the aggregate fee as “equal to the public health costs and financial burdens borne by the State and its residents as a result of firearm injuries occurring in this State…” and calculates the first year fee to be a staggering $866,000,000, with escalations each year based upon the consumer price index. Each manufacturer would be forced to pay a portion of the fee in proportion to their market share.
It also requires every manufacturer that would seek to sell firearms in the state to apply for an annual “Responsibility in Firearm Sales license” from the superintendent. The measure applies to all manufacturers, not just manufacturers physically located in the state.
New Jersey retailers would be prohibited from selling a firearm unless the manufacturer of that firearm holds a valid license.
The reality of such a measure, if passed, is that manufacturers would simply cease to do business in New Jersey, functionally disarming the population, which is an implied goal of the bill which acknowledges, “Ownership of firearms has surged dramatically in this State since 2019.”
