An attorney that works with ANJRPC currently has an Op-Ed in North Jersey media market that suggests why the Garden State’s gun laws are unconstitutional:
As it turns out, New Jersey gun law offers fertile ground for challenge, not merely because the state has such strict laws but because New Jersey law is exceedingly aggressive toward the law-abiding gun owner.
New Jersey’s regulatory scheme is highly unusual in that it approaches gun control by categorically banning guns and then carving out extremely limited exceptions to the prohibitions.
Read the whole thing. New Jersey’s gun laws are designed to frustrate the exercise of the right by making it exceedingly legally hazardous to own and transport firearms. Despite anti-gunners claims to the contrary, it’s hard to see how it’s constitutional to start out with the default assumption that all guns are banned.
UPDATE: More here.
The unfortunate thing is that in New Jersey, the Brady strategy has worked brilliantly. The absurd restrictions have led to a low rate of gun ownership here (by non-criminals, anyway), and people overwhelmingly accept the restrictions as normal. I have a very large extended family*, but between all of them I have exactly three NJ relatives who own guns: one has a single shotgun he uses for bird hunting and doesn’t care about defensive guns; one has a handgun for defense but thinks the state’s restrictions are necessary and proper for preventing violent crime; and one is a cop.
Around here, even the folks who understand how messed up the laws are usually have no interest in changing them. It’s the New Jersey way. In most of the rest of the country, the legislature is the first line of defense and the high courts are just backup. Here, I have a hard time believing anything short of SCOTUS mandates will fundamentally change the state of affairs.
[* – We’re a household of three, two branches of which are Italian and Irish Catholics; we have lots of relatives. ;) ]