While many Americans already had visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads, anti-gun New Jersey lawmakers were busy doing the work of their financial enablers in the gun-ban lobby.
During a lame duck session, anti-gunners in the state legislature managed to pass four bills that now only need Democrat Gov. Phil Murphy’s signature to become law.
“These bills do nothing to enhance public safety and are simply another lashing out at the Bruen decision,” NRA’s Institute for Legislative Session (NRA-ILA) said in a December 23 news alert.
The lone Senate measure, S.1425, unjustly punishes firearms dealers who “reasonably should know” if a purchaser is prohibited from owning firearms.
“The measure states: “As used in this paragraph, “‘reasonably should know’ means that a person reasonably should know a fact when, under the circumstances, a person of reasonable prudence and competence would ascertain or know the fact.”
Such a provision is completely unjust and can turn gun sellers into potential felons even if the government has approved the person purchasing the gun.
“Every firearm transfer through a licensed dealer must clear a state and federal background check before a gun can be released,” NRA-ILA stated. “How is it that a dealer ‘reasonably should know’ something about a purchaser when the State itself tells the dealer it is OK to transfer the firearm?”
In the General Assembly, lawmakers passed A.4978, which requires the state attorney general to report data regarding shootings that did not result in bodily injury.
“In addition, the bill requires each county prosecutor to report this data to the Attorney General every quarter for three years in a manner prescribed by the Attorney General,” the measure states. “At the end of the three years, the Attorney General is to submit a report to the Governor and the Legislature and publish the report on the Internet website of the Department of Law and Public Safety.”
As NRA-ILA explained: “This is nothing more than an attempt to manipulate data so it can be used to justify more firearm restrictions in the future.”
The last two measures, A.4975 and A.4981, are equally egregious. A.4975 establishes the crime of possessing digital instructions to illegally manufacture firearms and firearm components.
“In 2018, Governor Phil Murphy signed legislation banning the use of these digital files,” NRA-ILA stated. “This bill is even worse, as mere possession of the files would result in harsh penalties, even if a person unknowingly ‘possesses’ them on a long-forgotten old computer or email account.”
Additionally, A.4981 permits a court to take additional time to consider pretrial release or pretrial detention when a firearm offense is involved. Fortunately, after NRA-ILA strongly objected in a committee hearing, the bill’s provision allowing indefinite pretrial detention was amended to limit such detention to no longer than seven days.
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