It's entirely possible we're not really the target and just collateral damage, but the end result looks to be the same. They don't like that Trump won and, among other things, are coping by trying to screw over one of the groups that voted for him by the largest margins imaginable.

Rather than volunteering at the food bank or donating to local unhoused populations, as the article recommends, for many the reaction to the new presidency is manifesting itself as a commitment to impede the democratically elected president and his allies, often under the paradoxical guise of “protecting democracy.” This, predictably, includes stepped-up efforts to enact extreme gun control measures.  

In New Jersey, Assemblywoman Carol A. Murphy, a Democrat and “proud… Moms Demand Action Gun Sense Candidate,” has apparently decided that the state’s already draconian gun laws don’t make it hard enough for law-abiding individuals to acquire firearms.

On January 16, Murphy introduced a bill to amend the state’s handgun “permit to purchase” and “firearms purchaser identification card” laws to add new requirements.  

The current version of the law, N.J.S.2C:58-3, generally states that anyone who is not a licensed dealer must have a valid “firearms purchaser identification card” (FPIC) to “acquire an antique cannon or a rifle or shotgun,” including BB, pellet and black powder rifles. Another subsection prohibits a person from acquiring a handgun without a valid state-issued “permit to purchase a handgun” (PPH), and conversely, prohibits selling, giving, transferring, assigning or otherwise disposing of a handgun without the other party to the transaction possessing such permit, unless the “purchaser, assignee, donee, receiver or holder” is licensed as a firearms dealer. The PPH only applies to a single transaction, so each handgun requires a separate permit, and state law prohibits more than one delivery of a handgun to any person within a 30-day period. Further, any transaction requiring either a PPH or an FPIC must be brokered through a retail gun dealer, who must record the details of the transaction, conduct state and federal background checks and may charge a fee of up to $70.

This is, for the record, the very same bill that also requires every adult in the household to undergo the exact same vetting as someone trying to buy a gun in New Jersey.

It's one thing to lose your rights because you committed a felony. It's quite another to lose your rights because your spouse or adult offspring committed a felony, which is exactly what New Jersey is trying to do.

And yes, I do think Murphy is trying to punish gun owners for Trump's return to the White House.

However, there's a problem. As the original post notes, Bruen makes it pretty clear this kind of thing isn't acceptable. Any court that gives an honest reading of what Murphy is trying to do under Bruen's standards will tell you it's unconstitutional as hell. It's bad enough that there's a licensing requirement at all, but to make someone's rights contingent on someone else's criminal or mental health record, regardless of whether they'd have access or not, is a big problem.

What's more, it's a slippery slope. 

Look, let's say the courts were to uphold this, just for the sake of argument. What's next? They've already established that your right to purchase a firearm depends on other members of the household being legally able to own a firearm in their own right, so what's to say that they decide you can't own a gun unless everyone in the household is 18 or older?

That's not exactly a stretch, is it?

It's wrong, but so is this.

And it's really just pettiness because we aren't seeing a lot of cases of criminals using guns their partners or roommates bought for themselves. This isn't even a solution looking for a problem. This is nothing more than punishment.

I hope that my worst fears aren't reality and this is a bridge too far for even New Jersey, but I'm not holding my breath.