If there’s one thing we can count on New Jersey to deliver, it’s terrible takes. While there are some good folks there, it also seems there are a lot of people who don’t really care about things like the Constitution.

They love gun control an awful lot there.

In fact, despite the Bruen decision laying down some pretty tough hurdles for any anti-gun legislation to clear, folks there still want it.

The latest Rutgers-Eagleton Poll found 61% of New Jersey residents disagree with a Supreme Court ruling last year in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, commonly known as the Bruen decision.

According to the data, 92% of respondents support firearm safety training courses, a component of the new law the judge allowed to remain in place.

At least 67% of New Jerseyans said they also supported requiring permit holders to purchase insurance to carry a firearm in public and banning concealed carry on private property unless the property owner explicitly allows it. U.S. District Court Judge Renee Marie Bumb, who is overseeing the case, recently threw those provisions out, finding them unconstitutional.

Another 62% said they supported banning the carry of weapons in “sensitive places” such as schools, hospitals, polling places and public beaches. That’s a key aspect of the legal dispute because the law Murphy signed last December sought to prohibit concealed carry in most places people gather, but the judge’s ruling put that provision on hold.

In fairness, they think Bruen was wrong. It’s not that they don’t care, they just think the justices made a terrible mistake.

They didn’t, but that’s what at least 61 percent of respondents seem to think.

Yet there is good news here. In fact, we have some very good news.

The good news is that it doesn’t really matter what those 61 percent think or what anyone else believes. We don’t decide questions on our rights based on a survey. We don’t decide who gets to do what based on popular opinion.

In short, their opinions mean little in the grand scheme of things, at least so far as gun rights go.

But wait, there’s more.

It seems the Firearms Policy Coalition found a bit of a problem. In asking about the Bruen decision, what they said looks nothing at all like the Bruen decision.

Interesting: Not only did the poll (incorrectly) describe Bruen as requiring permitless carry, but 43% of young people in New Jersey would have agreed with that, and they were the age group least opposed to it! https://t.co/CMuhNuFAnm pic.twitter.com/pTmQJV6MzZ

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) May 18, 2023

That’s right, the poll presented Bruen as barring permitting requirements completely. That’s not remotely true as it only killed the whole “may issue” bit and prohibits states from demanding citizens show cause why they should be allowed to practice their rights.

Seems like a big issue to me.

Now, that said, the next question does ask whether or not respondents believe states should be able to require citizens to show good cause to have a permit. There, 58 percent said they did. Of course, I’m curious how many of those think “self-defense” was sufficient cause in and of itself.

I ask because the state of New Jersey never did.

On the upside, regardless of the findings of this poll, we don’t determine our rights based on a survey. We don’t forfeit civil liberties because it’s popular.

Especially when the pollsters either don’t know what they’re talking about or just outright lie to the people they’re polling.