Jersey City passed a gun rationing ordinance, and ANJRPC fought it in court and won. It looks like the case is going before the New Jersey Supreme Court now.  As we detailed a few months ago, ACORN is heavily involved in this case. The New Jersey court system has not always been friendly to gun issues. The infamous case of New Jersey v. Pelleteri is instructive. Pelleteri was charged with being in possession of a Marlin Model 60, with a 17 round tube fed magazine, which is defined as an “assault firearm” under New Jersey law. His defense tried to argue that he was unaware the Marlin fell under New Jersey’s definition, and thus he did not knowingly possess an “assault firearm.”  The court concluded:
When dealing with guns, the citizen acts at his peril. In short, we view the statute as a regulatory measure in the interests of the public safety, premised on the thesis that one would hardly be surprised to learn that possession of such a highly dangerous offensive weapon is proscribed absent the requisite license.
That’s a .22LR plinking gun they are speaking of here, not an AK-47. Oh, and the license they speak of? They won’t issue it to you. They are like carry licenses in New Jersey, in that they exist in theory, but not in practice.
I think about traveling to New Jersey to shoot sometimes, and then I remember all the case law I’ve read, and think better of it. Sometimes it’s better, even if a bit riskier, to be ignorant.
UPDATE: This article about the oral arguments make it sound as though Jersey City made the argument that if the Court would allow them to break the state’s preemption laws, then it would be okay because other cities would follow in their tracks.
Jardim pushed for the court to keep the ordinance so that other towns and states might create similar laws.
“We hope that towns adopt it. We hope that the state adopts it. We hope that Pennsylvania adopts it. We hope that there’s a federal law for it,” said Jardim.
