In a landmark decision, a federal appeals court struck down New Jersey’s assault weapons ban and high-capacity magazine restrictions Friday, marking the first time a federal appellate court has ruled that a state’s ban on such firearms violates the Second Amendment.
The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc with all judges participating, voted 10-5 to invalidate both the state’s prohibition on semiautomatic rifles like AR-15s and its restrictions on magazines holding more than ten rounds of ammunition. The decision came in response to lawsuits brought by gun rights groups challenging New Jersey’s decades-old regulations.
The ruling represents a significant expansion of a lower court’s July 2024 decision, which had struck down New Jersey’s specific ban on AR-15 rifles but allowed the magazine restrictions to remain in place. The appeals court went further, declaring that the ban on all types of semiautomatic rifles, not just the AR-15, violates the Constitution, and reversed the lower court’s approval of the magazine limits.
Writing for the majority, Judge Arianna Freeman stated that the Supreme Court’s recent Second Amendment rulings teach that “bans or broad prohibitions on possessing or carrying of a class of weapons in common use for lawful purposes fail to find support in our Nation’s tradition of firearm regulation.” The decision applied the framework established by the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which requires modern gun restrictions to be rooted in the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
Freeman, appointed by President Biden in 2022, authored the opinion with support from two Biden appointees and Republican-appointed judges. The decision examined whether semiautomatic rifles qualify as “arms” protected by the Second Amendment and whether they are in common use for lawful purposes. The court noted that approximately 24 million AR-15s and similar rifles are in circulation, surpassed only by the number of registered handguns. The court also found that these weapons are commonly used for self-defense, target shooting, hunting, and pest control.
When addressing magazine capacity limits, the court rejected New Jersey’s argument that magazines holding more than ten rounds are not “arms” protected by the Second Amendment. The majority held that the text of the Second Amendment covers all magazines, not just those the state considers standard capacity, and that large-capacity magazines are in common use for lawful purposes and therefore protected.
New Jersey’s assault weapons restrictions, first enacted in 1990, have been among the nation’s most stringent. Democratic Governor Jim Florio signed the original law in May 1990, making it at the time the toughest assault weapons ban in the country. The law prohibited dozens of semiautomatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns, as well as firearms deemed substantially identical to named models. In 2018, Governor Phil Murphy lowered the legal magazine capacity from fifteen rounds to ten.
Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, a Democrat, responded to the decision by calling it “as unfortunate as it is legally incorrect.” She noted that “every other federal circuit court to consider the issue has come out the other way” and reiterated that “assault weapons and large capacity magazines play a dangerous role in the modern epidemic of mass shootings, and New Jersey acted reasonably and lawfully in restricting them.” She said her office was considering its options to address the ruling.
The gun rights community hailed the decision. John Commerford, executive director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, called it a “historic victory for the NRA, the Second Amendment, and law-abiding Americans,” saying it affirmed that “the right to keep and bear arms, including commonly-owned rifles and standard-capacity magazines, is fundamental and cannot be infringed.”
The ruling did not address New Jersey’s ban on semiautomatic shotguns and handguns that are also included in the state’s definition of assault firearms. The court remanded that portion of the case to the district court for further proceedings based on the legal reasoning the appeals court applied to semiautomatic rifles.
Several judges filed dissenting opinions. Circuit Judge Patty Shwartz, an Obama appointee, argued that states are entitled to ban certain weapons, including what she described as “dangerous and unusual” semiautomatic rifles that have been used in crimes and mass shootings. Circuit Judge Cheryl Ann Krause noted in another dissent that New Jersey’s laws are consistent with the nation’s tradition of regulating particularly dangerous weapons and were responsive to technological changes and horrific uses of weapons that lawmakers of earlier eras could not have foreseen.
The timing of the decision carries significant implications. The U.S. Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, agreed last month to review similar assault weapons bans adopted in Cook County, Illinois, and Connecticut. The court is expected to hear arguments and decide those cases during its upcoming term, with a decision likely by next summer. The Third Circuit’s ruling, as the first appellate court to strike down such bans, could influence the Supreme Court’s ultimate decision on whether states may prohibit AR-15-style rifles nationwide.
Gun rights supporters said the decision marks a dramatic shift in New Jersey’s position as one of the nation’s most restrictive states on gun laws. Scott Bach, executive director of the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, one of the plaintiffs in the case, told media outlets that “this decision marks the beginning of a very different time—New Jersey lawmakers have had free reign for decades and could pass whatever they wanted without accountability for decades. That era is over.”
The case has been remanded to the district court, and it remains unclear whether New Jersey will appeal the Third Circuit’s decision to the Supreme Court or pursue other legal options.