New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy is not a fan of the Second Amendment. He’s made that abundantly clear over the years. However, his anti-gun shenanigans apparently have enough backing in the state that he felt no need to restrain himself. Then again, that’s not overly surprising.

At least, that’s how it looked from outside the state.

Now, though, it seems that’s changing. Hell, even some of the press in the state is getting sick of it.

Gov. Phil Murphy showed his progressive anti-gun credentials in 2019 by proposing 10 new gun-control laws.

Since New Jersey already had some of the strictest gun-control laws in the nation, the challenge seemed to be coming up with new ones he could put his name to. Getting his Democratic Legislature to enact them was the easy part.

The most consequential of them was the further ratcheting down of how many bullets may be in a gun’s magazine — from the previous 15 to just 10.

Another fixed an overreaching gun law that required all handguns sold in the state to be smart guns — usable only by their owners — should such guns ever become available. That signaled gun manufacturers that if they developed a smart gun, they couldn’t sell their many more popular models, with predictable results. So a new law just required dealers to offer at least one smart gun model if they became available.

The rest of Murphy’s first batch of gun laws seemed less effective or more redundant.

Now the governor, just in time for his reelection campaign, has come up with a dozen more bills and executive orders to further restrict the legal ownership and use of guns that already is often nearly impossible in New Jersey.

…

We suspect that most of New Jersey’s gun violence — half of which takes place in just five cities — is done with guns that are illegal or illegally owned. Murphy’s many shots at gun control haven’t seemed to hit that mark yet.

This is from an editorial from the Press of Atlantic City, which is the fourth-largest paper in the state.

Now, I have little doubt the editorial board and I would disagree on which laws in place should remain and whether any on the books should go away, but the fact is that they are dubious of where Murphy would take the state in relation to the Second Amendment. They also note that the Supreme Court case involving New York’s may-issue permitting law may well have profound ramifications on New Jersey.

It’s interesting because the media generally doesn’t like guns. And this is Atlantic City, which is large enough you’d expect them to not have small-town sensibilities.

If they’re getting sick of Murphy’s grandstanding on guns, just who else in the state is? Has his attempt to beat the anti-gun drum been enough to alienate voters? Could it lead to someone semi-decent winning the gubernatorial election and making bringing some sense back into the Garden State.

Then again, maybe it won’t. Maybe while people are getting sick of Murphy’s gun control agenda, they’re not sick enough to do anything about it.

Who knows?

What I do know, though, is that this is a promising sign. May it be the first of many.