Gov. Phil Murphy on Tuesday signed seven bills into law that further tighten New Jersey’s already stringent gun regulations and vowed to seek even more measures while the state navigates a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision loosening restrictions on carrying a concealed firearm.
“These are not going to be our last words on gun safety,” the Democratic governor said before signing the laws during a ceremony at borough hall in Metuchen, which was filled with gun-control advocates, including many in red Moms Demand Action T-shirts.
Under the new laws, the Garden State will mandate people receive firearm training to get a gun permit, ban .50 caliber weapons, make it easier to sue gun manufacturers and dealers over gun crimes in the state, stipulate new residents coming from other states register firearms, require micro-stamping technology, regulate handgun ammunition, and crack down on “ghost guns.”
“They are common-sense. They are smart. They live up to our Jersey values,” Murphy said of the measures.
Opponents — including many Republican lawmakers — argue the measures will simply punish law-abiding gun owners and be ignored by criminals, especially because firearms flowing in from out of state are used in most gun crimes here.
This is the third package of gun reforms Murphy and the Democratic-controlled state Legislature have enacted since the governor took office in 2018 in New Jersey, home to some of the nation’s strongest firearm laws.
Tuesday’s event coincidentally came less than 24 hours after a gunman killed at least seven people and injured at least 30 others at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois and after two police officers were shot during Independence Day festivities in Philadelphia. Murphy called the former an “awful, awful, unspeakable tragedy.”
The governor noted there have been more than 870 mass shootings since he proposed most of these bills 15 months ago. He also noted there have been 1,271 shootings in New Jersey in that time, leading to 291 deaths.
“There are those who think this is all just a price of living in the United States,” said Murphy, a Democrat considered a potential future presidential candidate. “Sadly, it appears six of these mistaken people sit on the Supreme Court of the United States of America.”
“We know we can take on the epidemic of gun violence and win,” he added. “We know we can put in place strong and smart gun-safety laws that are consistent with the Second Amendment and still protect our communities.”
State Sen. Ed Durr, R-Gloucester, countered Tuesday that none of the new restrictions “will do anything to protect New Jerseyans from tragic attacks like those in Highland Park, Uvalde, and Buffalo.”
“These are empty solutions that will not stop violent criminals who will ignore every new gun law that’s enacted,” Durr added. “All these bills will do is put more legal gun owners at risk of being prosecuted for unintentional technical violations of the law.”
Murphy acknowledged that Illinois also has strong gun laws, that the Highland Park shooter purchased his firearm legally, and “skeptics may ask why do all this if that’s true.” He said he doesn’t know if these new laws would have helped prevent such a massacre. But he said the goal is to “improve our batting average on gun safety” and that “all these steps, even if they’re small, they add up.”
This gun package was more difficult to foster than the previous two, thanks to resistance from some lawmakers. Murphy repeatedly urged the Legislature to pass the measures for more than a year and increased his pleas in the wake of the recent mass shootings in Buffalo and Texas.
The Legislature ultimately passed the bills last Wednesday, most along party lines, before breaking for the summer.
New Jersey already has the second-strongest gun laws in the U.S., after California, according to rankings by the Giffords Law Center. It also ranks 48th among the 50 states in per capita gun deaths per year, according the center. Meanwhile, about 80% of New Jersey’s gun deaths occur with firearms that come from out of state, according to state statistics.
Murphy has said the new laws are even more necessary after the Supreme Court last month overturned New York’s concealed carry law, which will likely to lead to more people in America being allowed to carry guns, including in New Jersey, a state with a similar law. Lawmakers and experts say the ruling could lead to some of New Jersey’s gun laws being challenged in court.
Last week, the Supreme Court also told federal appeals courts to revisit cases involving laws in California and New Jersey that limit the number of bullets a gun magazine can hold. A 2018 state law limits most gun owners in New Jersey to magazines that hold up to 10 rounds of ammunition instead of the 15-round limit in place since 1990. A lower court upheld the law.
Alejandro Roubian, president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, recently said he will challenge any “unreasonable and ridiculous rules” that Murphy pushes.
Acting state Attorney General Matthew Platkin said Tuesday these new laws will save lives and are “consistent with the Second Amendment.”
Murphy has also promised more action. He announced last month state leaders will work on a bill to prohibit guns in a wide array of “sensitive” places in New Jersey — including hospitals, public transit, stadiums, bars, and courthouses — as a safety precaution after the concealed carry ruling.
State Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, said last week it’s “possible” the Legislature could return to Trenton this summer to vote on such a measure.
“Our communities need the protection that we can provide,” Coughlin said Tuesday.
In addition, two of the biggest bills Murphy asked for — one that would raise the age to buy shotguns and rifles in New Jersey from 18 to 21 and one that would revamp how guns must be stored in the state — did not make it through the Legislature. Neither did a measure that would limit body armor here.
“Our work is not done,” Murphy said when asked by a reporter if he’ll continue to push for those bills.
The governor and Legislature enacted two gun bill packages during Murphy’s first term. In April 2021, Murphy introduced this third package.
But most of the measures languished in the Legislature. Former Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, opposed many of the bills, saying they didn’t address curbing illegal guns. Meanwhile, Republicans gained seven seats in a tense November election, apparently dampening Democrats’ appetite to pass potentially controversial legislation.
The national debate over gun reform, however, got new life after the recent mass shootings. Congress responded by passing major gun legislation for the first time in decades. President Joe Biden recently signed it into law.
New Jersey’s bills also passed after weeks of negotiations over the state budget, a period that often sees leaders cut deals on controversial legislation.
State Senate President Nicholas Scutari, D-Union — who took over as the chamber’s leader in January after Sweeney lost re-election — said Tuesday the new laws aren’t “a reactionary thing” but “the product of good government.”
“We worked on this to make sure we were laser-focused on issues that would make a difference in New Jersey,” Scutari said.
State Sen. Joseph Cryan, D-Union, a sponsor of some of these laws, made a nod to the Second Amendment in his comments.
“Somewhere in this world between 1776 and today, between a musket and an AK-47, the rules changed,” Cryan said. “It may be a right under the Second Amendment, but it sure as hell should be a regulated right. … We’ve watched too many lives lost.”
State Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz, D-Essex, also suggested the laws are important not just to deter mass shootings but gun violence in cities such as Newark, where nine people were shot Thursday.
“We have always understood that gun violence has been a public health crisis facing all of us,” Ruiz said.
Raisa Rubin-Stankiewicz, a Rutgers University student who is co-director of March for Our Lives New Jersey, called this a rare “day of hope,” one day after Illinois witnessed “one of the most devastating American tragedies” — a deadly shooting on July 4.
“New Jersey is serving as an urgently needed model for the rest of the country,” she said.
The seven new laws do the following:
•Require training for people to receive a gun purchaser ID in the state and to renew that card every 10 years. (A4370)
•Ban the future sales certain .50 caliber rifles in the state. It would not apply to antique firearms, and current owners of such weapons would need to register them and pay a $50 fee. (S2905)
•Amend the state’s public nuisance laws to prohibit the gun industry from endangering the safety or health of the public through its sale, manufacturing, importing, or marketing of guns. (A1765)
•Require gun owners who move to New Jersey to obtain a firearm purchaser ID card and register their guns within 60 days. (S1204)
•Require retailers in the state to sell micro-stamped firearms once the state attorney general determines they are commercially available. That is designed to help investigators trace guns to bullets and casings recovered at crime scenes, though the technology is not yet widely available. (A4368)
•Require ammunition manufacturers and dealers to keep a detailed electronic record of sales and report them to the State Police. (A1302)
•Increase penalties in the state related to manufacturing of “ghost guns.” Those are untraceable firearms that can be bought online and assembled at home. (S2846)
Murphy said requiring people to pass a safety course to get a gun ID is “no different” than needing a license to drive a car.
Meanwhile, Platkin, the acting state attorney general, said the expanded public nuisance law will help New Jersey “hold gun manufacturers and retailers accountable for the bloodshed that they’re causing in our communities.”
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