For nearly 50 years, New Jersey has prohibited civilians from using hollow-point ammo in public for self-defense. Since the 2022 Bruen Supreme Court decision, the state has issued over 100,000 permits to carry a concealed firearm. Yet, not only is the state aggressively defending its ban on the most effective defensive ammo for civilians, most police departments REQUIRE the use of hollow point ammo by policy, creating a two-tier set of rights and a policy rooted in cognitive dissonance.
There are slight and technical exemptions, which are laid out in our previous reporting, but in general, N.J.S.2C:39-6 bans possession of “hollow nose or dum-dum bullet[s]” as a fourth-degree crime.
Just over a year ago, a coalition of gun rights groups sued the State of New Jersey over this unlawful ban in a case called Bergmann-Schoch v. Platkin. Over the course of the last 13 months, both parties have been involved in discovery and briefing the court.
In March of this year, the plaintiffs moved for summary judgment in what should be an open-and-shut case, given that New Jersey’s law does not pass the Bruen test, and there is no significant historical analogue banning the use of such ammunition which was first introduced in 1880, especially no analogue from the founding period.
The lady of the state “doth protest too much” and in an April response brief aggressively defending its ban, the state argued that the lethality of hollow point ammo is so great, it must be kept from the public:
By design, hollow point ammunition is more lethal than other ammunition. It expands upon impact, tearing and crushing tissue and causing greater damage to organs. This greater tissue destruction results in greater hemorrhaging and a higher risk of death. New Jersey has thus prohibited the carry of hollow point ammunition outside the home since the 1970s.
The state has gone so far as to claim that ammunition is not an “Arm” implicated by the plain text of the Second Amendment, and even more unbelievably, that hollow point ammunition lacks Second Amendment protection because it is “unsuitable for lawful self-defense.”
The state is going to have a difficult time explaining to the court why none of these arguments hold true for law enforcement, who are exempted from the ban, and are also private citizens. (Incidentally, there are now significant data sets showing that private citizens commit fewer crimes than police officers, a fact brought forth in the plaintiff’s May 5 response brief.)
News2A spoke with a lieutenant serving on a major New Jersey police force who confirmed that his department policy REQUIRES officers to use hollow point ammunition – the same ammunition that the state says is so lethal, civilians must not be able to use it outside the home. He also confirmed that it is normal policy for nearly all police departments.
Most law enforcement agencies around the country, including those in New Jersey, adopted hollow point ammo decades ago because of conclusions by FBI studies on ammunition use: hollow point ammunition elevated the officer’s well-being and survival over possible collateral damage of bystanders. According to a November 1989 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin:
“This reflects the judgment that underpenetration of a handgun bullet presents a far greater risk to the law enforcement officer than overpenetration does to an innocent bystander.”
In simpler terms, it’s much more dangerous if a police officer’s bullet doesn’t go deep enough into the person they’re shooting at than if the bullet goes all the way through and accidentally hits an innocent person behind them.
New Jersey reverses this position when arguing in defense of its ban for civilians.
The state’s duplicitous position demonstrates another untenable argument, laid out smartly in plaintiff’s May 5 response brief:
Ironically, the military’s bullet of choice – the full metal jacket – is the only alternative New Jersey allows. Defendants thus simultaneously demand Plaintiffs use the military round, while claiming Plaintiffs have no right to use military arms. That is self-defeating and untenable.
The arguments in this case seem to strongly favor the plaintiffs and gun owners at large, but there’s no way to know how the court will rule. In general, New Jersey seems to be in a losing posture, very much aware that other cases challenging the state’s gun control measures are likely to fall.
For example, in April, New Jersey’s acting attorney general, Jennifer Davenport, sent a letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit urging it not to rule in favor of pro-2A plaintiffs who are challenging New Jersey’s bans on “assault weapons” and “large capacity magazines.”
And just this week, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division sued Denver and the State of Colorado over their ban on AR-15 rifles, and the state’s “high capacity” mag ban – neither of which bode well for New Jersey, should there be a split in circuit opinion. AAG Harmeet Dhillon has her eye on New Jersey, and the state knows it. She filed a pro-2A brief in the case challenging New Jersey’s own AWB and mag ban, in September of 2025.
