The state of New Jersey isn't just unsupportive of the right to keep and bear arms. It's downright hostile. I once joked with our own John Petrolino that his home state was so restrictive, that he should consider relocating to a free state like Illinois or Massachusetts--and there was more than a little truth in that.

It's bad.

Luckily, at least one area the state sucked was taken out of their hands. They were a "may issue" state before Bruen, and they didn't accept self-defense as a valid reason to want to carry a gun. Not in and of itself, anyway. Bruen changed all of that. They can no longer prohibit people from getting permits without justifying themselves to the state.

And then there are all the other permits people have to get in order to exercise a basic, constitutionally protected right. New Jersey requires permits for all kinds of things, including one just to purchase a firearm.

While the wait time for carry permits is closely monitored by activists, it seems one community may have tried to find a way to...discourage gun ownership without crossing that particular Rubicon.

Is Belleville, New Jersey Slow-Walking Firearm Related Permits?

New Jersey is a special place when it comes to the Second Amendment. For nearly a century, the rights enshrined in our Bill of Rights concerning weapons and arms have been under regulation. In the wake of NYSRPA v. Bruen, most of the permitting issues should have been resolved. In N.J., in particular, this should not be an issue. 100% of the application process is online and the New Jersey State Police handles the heavy lifting on the background checks. Recently there have been reports coming in that Belleville is allegedly slow-walking permits.

...

N.J. requires firearm identification cards for the purchase of, and the possession outside of exemption, of long guns. N.J. also requires pistol purchase permits for each and every handgun an individual wishes to acquire. The permits are good for 90 days with an option to renew for another 90 days at the issuing authority’s discretion.

Further, a person must be in possession of and show either a firearm identification card, pistol purchase permit, or permit to carry in order to purchase handgun ammunition in the Garden State.

Reports have been coming in that Belleville is taking an excessively long time to process peoples’ pistol purchase permits and firearm identification cards. This is even in the case of people who have already been through the New Jersey vetting system multiple times in their lifetimes.

According to one applicant, Belleville resident Daniel Iannuzzo, these issues have persisted for years. Reviewing the paperwork and documentation that Iannuzzo provided, we can see he applied for three permits to purchase pistols on November 13th, 2024.

New Jersey requires applicants – even repeat ones – to provide two character references in order to apply for permits. Iannuzzo’s references returned their character evaluations via the reporting system on November 13th and 14th respectively.

Iannuzzo also has a receipt dated November 14th, 2024 showing that he paid the required $75.00 fee to Belleville – in addition to the $21.00 background investigation fee to the State of New Jersey.

According to New Jersey law, an issuing authority has 30 days to issue permits to purchase or firearm identification cards to resident

Belleville's carry permit wait time is on par with the rest of the state, but that's not something that's handled locally in the first place.

Today is the last day of the year, and it seems Iannuzzo still hasn't gotten his permit, which means its well past the 30 days required.

What's more, it seems the process changed in the not-too-distant pass to a "newer and easier" electronic format, but that's also when the delays first started.

Permitting officials say they're just swamped, which might well be true.

The problem here is that a permit like this is absolutely essential if you want to exercise your right to keep and bear arms in the Garden State. Iannuzzo--and he's not the only one reporting problems here--dropped nearly $100 in order to exercise that right, only he can't because Belleville can't get its crap together. This has apparently been going on for a couple of years, as Iannuzzo spoke at a town meeting then about the delay.

But here's the strange thing.

Mayor Melham indicated that he’s been made aware of delays in the past via email. He said that after he inquired, the permitting delays “were quickly addressed.” As for why there were delays in the past, he noted that, “Reasons have ranged from the applicant not having complete paperwork, failure [to] pay a fee, or delays with background checks (which is not under our control).”

If these were basic issues accounting for the delays, why are they suddenly being addressed after the mayor gets involved? Iannuzzo reported that he found the best results involved an email with a CC to the mayor as well.

Now, the fact that there are delays seems inescapable, and I'm not buying that these delays are limited to the things the mayor reports. I say that because these delays being "quickly addressed" means someone was sitting on their buts.

New Jersey law gives them 30 days and they're taking longer than that and they have for years now.

Either they really are just swamped, in which case they just need more staffing to deal with the backlog. The reason for responsiveness after the mayor gets involved is simply they bump those cases up to the top of the pile.

The other alternative is that they're just dragging their feet.

Even if there's a backlog, the fact that they haven't addressed it over the last couple of years takes it out of the realm of something beyond the city's control. This is the status quo they've chosen, even if they didn't actively seek it out.

And that's wrong.

This is the problem with requiring permits to purchase, gun owner ID cards, and the like. It creates more and more opportunities to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms, generally delaying people's access to their rights. This would be simple to address, only no one seems to care, and they're clearly trying to shift the blame to other parties rather than admit that they can't get their house in order.

Unfortunately, there's no chance the state of New Jersey stepping in and making Belleville get their crap together. If anything, the state is likely to hold them up as a model.

UPDATE: Iannuzzo got his permits approved this morning, apparently. 

Additionally, the chief claims the reporter who covered the original piece that there is no backlog and the delays are really totally and completely someone else's fault including somehow being able to file an electronic application successfully without paying necessary fees--something that is beyond baffling--or some other entity dragging their feet. You're free to buy just as much of that as you'd like.