The Garden State is never void of things to report on. As a matter of fact, covering the 2A news there is like drinking from a firehose. When you have a freedom-hating governor like Phil Murphy as the chief executive, bigots like Assemblyman John McKeon in office, and incredibly obtuse lawmakers like Joe Danielsen allegedly writing laws, they make covering how awful they are all too easy. Recently Governor Phil Murphy, D-N.J., released his budget proposal for the state and he aims to make the Second Amendment inaccessible to all but the rich.

The budget suggests a number of changes to the price tags associated with the firearm related paperwork that’s necessary to exercise a civil right. The governor's proposal did not breakdown the numbers, but rather stated in the “other revenues” section:

To avert the need for further spending reductions, the budget assumes the adoption of modest increases to fees charged by the Bureau of Securities, firearm permit and license fees, and raises the HMO assessment from 5 percent to 6 percent.

Some colleagues over at NJ.com did some serious groundwork and repeatedly reached out to the governor's office asking them to elaborate on what “modest increases to [...] firearm permit and license fees” meant. I reached out to S.P. Sullivan, the senior reporter who broke the story, and he said that a spokesperson eventually sent him the following information about the proposed rate increase:

• Firearms Purchaser Identification Card Application - $100 (Current Fee - $50) 

• Permit to Purchase Application - $50 (Current Fee - $25) 

• Duplicate Firearms Purchaser ID Card - $50 (Current Fee - $0)

• Wholesale/Retail Dealer Employee License Application - $40 (Current Fee - $5)

• Retail Firearms Dealer Licenses Initial/Renewal Applications - $500 (Current Fee - $50)

• Retail Firearms Dealer License for Corporations for Partnerships Initial/Renewal Application - $500 (Current Fee - $50)

• Manufacturer/Wholesale Dealers of Firearms Initial/Renewal Application - $1,500 (Current Fee - $150)

• Manufacturers/Wholesalers for Corporation or Partnerships Initial/Renewal Application - $1,500 (Current Fee - $150)

• Permit to Carry Initial/Renewal Application - $400 (Current Fee - $200) 

• NICS Check for Firearms Purchase - $45 (Current Fee - $15, $16 if it includes a handgun)

If readers recall, during the 2022 “carry killer” legislation passage, Murphy enacted the law that hiked up firearm permitting fees astronomically. This next step would double the already inexcusably inflated $200.00 permit to carry fee, for a permit that's only good for two years. He also would see to the doubling of the $25.00 pistol purchase permit fee, also already unreasonable, forcing citizens to spend an additional $50.00 per pistol purchase before even paying for the actual firearm.

Those mentioned NICS fees, which are free in all non-point of contact states, would be grossly inflated to $45.00. Throw in the doubling of the fee for a firearms ID card, and the "mother-may-I fee" is now $100.00, which means a person who wants to buy a handgun and eventually ammunition will be paying $195.00 in fees just on permitting. And that still doesn't include the fingerprinting fee, nor would that allow the carry of pistols for self-defense outside the home. Forget the cost of crucial accessories like safes, or fees for taking very important gun safety classes.

Murphy is taking a page out of Assemblyman John McKeon's book and wants to make sure marginalized persons cannot afford to get the permits to purchase or carry firearms. This is nothing short of racism and classism from tyrannical Governor Phil Murphy – another Democrat standing in the schoolhouse doorway.  

What's super ironic about this move is the crazed bitch-fest the Murph went on the other day involving a “congestion pricing scheme” and alleged violations of New York law.

Governor Phil Murphy today formally submitted written comments on behalf of the State of New Jersey to the Triborough Bridge & Tunnel Authority (TBTA), which will set the tolls for New York City’s congestion pricing scheme. In the letter, the Governor raises that the process to establish the tolling scheme violates New York State law and demonstrates that the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) is continuing to take shortcuts in order to rush through its ill-conceived and ill-considered Central Business District (CBD) Tolling Program.

“Today, I again voiced New Jersey’s concerns with MTA’s plans for congestion pricing in New York City,” said Governor Murphy. “MTA continues to cut corners on the legal and procedural requirements to establish congestion pricing in an effort to ignore the chorus of voices rising up in opposition to MTA’s plans. Enough is enough. It’s time for MTA to abandon its proposal and rethink congestion pricing in a way that makes sense.”

He certainly is in favor of “ill-conceived and ill-considered” laws and policies when it comes to guns. This is the same dullard who said that the Bill of Rights is outside his pay grade. 

Murphy’s cavalier attitude towards our Constitution is likely to bite him in the behind one day. Granted, he'll be long out of office and hopefully back in Massachusetts, where the wretched carpetbagger of a human came from, by the time all the litigation revolving around laws he enacted are finished, but the legacy he leaves behind is one of racism and contempt for civil liberties. To Murphy, N.J. citizens are merely sub-human subjects.

N.J. activist and advocate Tony Simon recently described Murphy's move as being “Jim Crow 2.0.” Simon, who hosts events called diversity shoots, which are designed to bring people of all walks of life together, observed that now the government wants to keep guns from all the non-ruling class, not just the Black citizens. Simon said his diversity shoots do exactly what the upper crust in N.J. does not want and that's the bringing together of people of different races and walks of life to exercise their civil liberties together. The new gun culture in New Jersey and across the country communicates with another, and that’s a threat to dictator-like “leaders” like Phil Murphy.

I was chatting with activist and content creator Charlie Cook, the host of Riding Shotgun with Charlie, about the possible fee increase. Cook is in the process of getting his non-resident paperwork in the Land of 1000 Diners and he said, “F*** Phil Murphy. F*** him!” 

My friends over at News2A.com made an less explicit but no less interesting observation about Murphy’s budget.

Incidentally, the budget contains an appended Schedule 1 form that shows state revenue as tied to various permits. It completely omits anything related to firearms other than “Retired Officer Handgun Permits” for which it processed 525 permits in 2023 and estimates 546 in 2024. It makes no mention of how many Permits to Carry a concealed handgun have been issued since July of 2022.

This fact that they pointed out is an important one, especially since the N.J. State Police head touted that there'd be 200,000 permit to carry holder applicants in the Garden State post NYSRPA v. Bruen. There's no way there are that many – yet. The governor must have not wanted the gross inaccuracies in their predictions to come to light. A N.J. Freedom of Information Act Request, OPRA, will be forthcoming concerning those numbers.

The good Murph needs to take a quick read through NYSRPA v. Bruen. There's some fun facts for the dear governor to take in.

That said, because any permitting scheme can be put toward abusive ends, we do not rule out constitutional challenges to shall-issue regimes where, for example, lengthy wait times in processing license applications or exorbitant fees deny ordinary citizens their right to public carry.

But why let these little details get in the way? 

I recently and repeatedly sent out an open invitation, while I was on an episode of Gun For Hire Radio, to Governor Phil Murphy, Attorney General Matt Platkin (who fell asleep during oral arguments at the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals while a case he's a named plaintiff in was being litigated), and dunce Joe Danielsen to have chats with me. I promise to be nice and polite, I'd just love to get some solid interviews done. 

We couldn't do an interview at an establishment that sells alcohol for consumption on the premises because of the carry-killer law, but perhaps a coffee and a cigar? We all know that the Murph can hide a whole box worth of Cohibas in between his teeth, but I'm willing to buy this member of the ruling class/upper crust a stick to smoke while we chat. I think the proposed fee increase would be a great topic to chew the fat over.

The fee increase becoming law might be all it takes to push the ball past the goal concerning challenging infringements. I can't see even a hostile court being okay with these kinds of rate hikes. Aside from the fact that it's pretty much unconstitutional to charge any fees – this is a civil liberty we're talking about – the existing fees are already beyond what's considered reasonable. 

Will these numbers make their way to the civil rights menu in the Garden State? Not sure. What is a fact though is that Governor Phil Murphy and his ilk are a bunch of jack-booted fascist thugs. Their legacies of hate and bigotry will live on forever and we’ll be telling the stories of their failures for years to come.