A New Jersey man was denied his Second Amendment right under an overused subjective standard. His case has been sitting with the N.J. Supreme Court for over two years.
In 2020, a New Jersey man was denied being issued a permit to purchase a handgun. The man, an already vetted gun owner at the time, was said to be disqualified under N.J.’s subjective “interest of the public health, safety or welfare” standard. What followed was a several-years-long battle — and wait. This inaction has left the man denied his civil rights for years. He’s further been waiting since April 2023, when the case was filed with the New Jersey Supreme Court.
The name of the case is IMO the Appeal of the Denial of M.U.’s Application for a Handgun Purchase Permit & IMO the Revocation of M.U.’s Firearms Purchaser Identification Card and Compelling the Sale of His Firearms, hereafter M.U.
After suffering through an ordeal that’s been ongoing since 2019, M.U. has been waiting for the New Jersey Supreme Court to move on his case for almost two-and-a-half years.
What transpired? As previously reported, M.U. has an expunged record for criminal mischief. The alleged acts were committed when he was 21. Subsequent to that, in 2015, there was a mixup over what was thought to be an abandoned trailer that M.U. took possession of. Allegations concerning the trailer were conditionally dismissed and there was no conviction sought.
Since M.U. had an expunged record and there were no convictions under the other allegations, he’s not a disqualified person by N.J. or federal statute.
From 2017 - 2019, M.U. was issued and had possession of appropriate firearm licenses and permits. At the end of 2019, M.U. made an application for an additional pistol purchase permit(s) and that’s where the 2020 denial came from — in N.J. each handgun purchase must have an individual single-use pistol purchase permit.
The denial criteria that was used to subvert M.U.’s rights was NJ Rev Stat § 2C:58-3. The issuing authority felt that M.U.’s “issuance [of a permit] would not be in the interest of the public health, safety or welfare.” The expunged record as well as the trailer misunderstanding were being used against M.U. to deny his subsequent permit(s).
Originally, authorities seized all of M.U.’s firearms in addition to denying his permit. However, a court found in 2023 that authorities could not seize his arms just because he was denied new paperwork. The M.U. decision established precedent that’s kept other gun owners from having their arms confiscated over similar permitting denials. The court fell short of applying Bruen properly and failed to invalidate New Jersey’s subjective standard. Footnote #9 of the 2022 Supreme Court decision bars the use of subjective permitting criteria.
M.U. appealed the decision shortly after that ruling. The petition to the New Jersey Supreme Court was filed on April 6, 2023. According to M.U.’s representation, all the briefs have been filed as well as reply briefs from the State of New Jersey.
M.U., if victorious, could invalidate a good portion of New Jersey’s permitting law, removing often-abused powers from issuing authorities.
Attorney Evan Nappen, whose firm represents M.U., pointed out some facts surrounding the published opinion.
“It is worth noting that the historical precedents relied upon by the Court were blatantly racist gun laws that existed throughout American history, and this tradition of institutionalized racism was furthered by the Court today by allowing expunged records to be used to deny Second Amendment rights,” Nappen said in a statement in 2023. “Expungements have recently been broadened in New Jersey to address prior racial injustice. The Court’s decision, however, undoes the goals of expungements for relief to enjoy civil rights.”
Nappen’s comments mirror several modern statistics uncovered by Bearing Arms. New Jersey’s subjective law has been used to deny people their rights going back to the 1960s, when they were enacted, and they persist this century.
Previously reported at Bearing Arms in 2024, § 2C:58-3, the “public health, safety or welfare” standard, is the primary vehicle for denying permit to carry applications. More than half the denials under the permitting system are using the subjective standard — that’s with applicants already possessing N.J. firearm identification cards and presumably having been issued at least one pistol purchase permit. The statutory disqualifiers for firearm identification cards, pistol purchaser permits, and permits to carry are identical.
Also in 2024, Bearing Arms broke the news that Black applicants for permits to carry in New Jersey are disproportionately — more than double — denied over white applicants using the same subjective standard used against M.U. A subsequent and independent study by Rise Against Hate found that when they looked at normalized numbers, Black applicants are denied at a rate of 10 times more than white. In Ocean County, that rate is 50 times more.
These jarring statistics were enough to cause lawmakers in New Jersey to introduce a bill that would require the state to report on firearm permitting denial criteria used. Bill A5964 would force the attorney general’s office to produce the statistics on the race and other anonymized information about applicants who are denied their Second Amendment right.
“There are barriers to exercising your Second Amendment — prior felonies, mental health concerns — that are valid concerns. But the color of your skin is not a valid concern,” the primary sponsor of the bill, State Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia, told New Jersey Monitor. “There should be no subjective measures. When you allow subjective measures into the conversation, that leaves it up to people, to personalities, to preconceived notions, and to bias, and that’s what we want to remove. There should never be bias associated with your ability to exercise a constitutional right.”
It’s important to observe that M.U.’s race has not been made known and is not being cited as a potential factor on why he was denied his pistol purchase permit.
The lengthy wait raises several questions. Why is the New Jersey Supreme Court stalling on this case? Wouldn’t this constitute justice being denied? Is this some sort of judicial malfeasance?
M.U. 's attorney, Louis P. Nappen did not mince words regarding the exorbitant delay his client has endured. “Judicial delay allows the oppression of Second Amendment Rights to continue unchecked,” Nappen told Bearing Arms.
Bearing Arms attempted to reach out to the court, however there’s no direct contact information publicly available for New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner. Nor is there any contact information available for the other justices.
While the case hangs in a balance waiting on action from Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, M.U. is having his rights denied. Utilizing the same subjective law, a disproportionate number of people administratively barred from exercising a fundamental constitutional right happen to be Black. Is this part of the court’s modus operandi? It’s likely M.U. could lead to a 21st Century emancipation and this case being stalled is cause for concern.
Editor's Note: Unelected judges are hijacking our Second Amendment rights and holding them hostage.
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