Unsurprisingly, the number of people applying for a concealed carry license in New Jersey has skyrocketed since the Supreme Court struck down the "may issue" licensing scheme adopted by New York, New Jersey, California, and a handful of other states. More than 41,000 Garden State gun owners have applied for their carry permits since the Court's decision in Bruen in June, 2022; a staggering increase compared to the roughly 1,600 applications that were filed in the two years prior to Bruen. 

But Scott Bach, head of the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, says the number of applicants would be even higher if the state wasn't continuing to play games with a fundamental civil right. 

“When there is a final outcome to that litigation, I expect there will be another surge. There are people who just don’t want to go through the intrusion and the trouble for a permit that’s only good for two years until they can have full carry rights. There are a lot of people sitting on the sidelines waiting for the moment when unfettered carry permits will be issued,” Bach said.

Bach’s group, along with several other gun rights advocates, challenged the law New Jersey legislators passed in the wake of Bruen that set wide-ranging new restrictions on gun carry in New Jersey. Both sides argued the issue in federal court in Philadelphia in October and are awaiting a decision.

Like many other formerly "may issue" states, New Jersey lawmakers responded to the Bruen decision by creating a host of new "gun-free zones" where lawful carry is prohibited. So long as the licensing authorities in the Garden State could suppress who could exercise their right to bear arms, those sensitive places were few and far between. But once the Supreme Court definitely stated that the right to bear arms is as much a part of the Second Amendment as the right to keep them, anti-gunners made it their mission to limit where we can exercise our Second Amendment rights. 

Mary Kenah is policy counsel with Everytown for Gun Safety. She applauded state Attorney General Matt Platkin for putting data on gun carry permit applications online in a public database launched in March because it “helps us to understand where and whom these permit applications are coming from so individuals can work alongside their lawmakers and local leaders to save lives in a post-Bruen world.”

“Since the Supreme Court’s misguided decision in Bruen, which lowered the bar for who can carry concealed handguns in public, New Jersey has seen a major increase in handgun carry permits,” Kenah said. “In response to this troubling increase, New Jersey lawmakers continue to push the envelope, enacting strong gun safety laws and implementing tools to keep our communities safe, especially as the Supreme Court’s decision has dangerously widened the list of public places where guns are now allowed.”

Kenah gets it backward. The Supreme Court didn't widen the list of places where guns are allowed. It noted that, historically, these sensitive places have been the exception, not the rule. And it was New Jersey lawmakers who flouted the Supreme Court by passing a law that made it impossible to lawfully carry in many publicly-accessible places; from parks and playgrounds to restaurants that serve alcohol, along with "entertainment facilities", public transportation, and even libraries. The state has also imposed the "vampire rule", which essentially prohibits carrying on any private property unless specific signage has been posted allowing it. 

What Kenah calls "pushing the envelope" is nothing more than a flagrant attempt to ignore much of the Bruen decision. As my colleague John Petrolino has outlined, some licensing authorities are delaying issuing permits, while subjective standards are still being used to deny applications whenever possible. John's also seen signs of racial bias in issuing permits.

Where things start to get startling is when we look at the denial data. .53% of white applications were denied, with 52 denied under “public health, safety, and welfare.” Contrast that to Black denials; 1.3% of Black applications were denied, with 26 denied under “public health, safety, and welfare.”

Black applicants are denied getting issued permits to carry in New Jersey at a rate of more than double that of whites.

Looking closer at the “public health, safety, and welfare” standard, we have more shocking data. Whites were denied .27% of the time under these subjective standards, with Blacks being denied .6% of the time. That’s also more than double. 2.2 times more Blacks are denied permits to carry over whites, under this subjective standard.

I extensively covered the “public health, safety, and welfare” standard back in March. As a recap, this standard is unconstitutional because it allows issuing authorities to use subjective standards to deny applicants the issuance of permits to carry. Seeing Blacks having this standard used as a denial criteria more than double that of whites should raise eyebrows. Why is  there such a racial disparity?

Because, as Kenah says, New Jersey lawmakers "continue to push the envelope", just as many southern states did after the Supreme Court struck down segregation in public education in Brown v. Board of Education. Anti-gun lawmakers are engaged in massive resistance to Bruen, and while every gun owner in the state is paying the price, it appears that the gun control laws crafted by Democrat lawmakers and touted by Everytown are causing a disproportionate amount of harm to Black residents.