‘Not about guns’: Gun rights groups sue New Jersey over weapons restrictions

Filed 50m ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Fig Leaf Rag

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Johann Georg Rauch · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

Gun rights advocates led by the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs and Knife Rights Inc. sued New Jersey on Monday over a 2022 law that broadly defines weapons as anything capable of lethal use, arguing it leaves residents unable to carry ordinary objects like bats, sticks, or scissors for self-defense.

The 28-page complaint leans on the Supreme Court's 2022 Bruen decision and cites a 1990 state case involving a woman who used a carpet cutter against an abusive ex-boyfriend, which the plaintiffs call an ‘unconscionable’ result. Named plaintiffs include a Sunday school teacher who wants a bigger pepper spray canister and a 77-year-old who would carry a switchblade if permitted.

New Jersey's attorney general's office says it will defend the law, framing the restrictions as commonsense measures against violence.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A lawsuit about scissors filed by a rifle and pistol club is a funny way to spend a Monday. Still, a state that writes its rules broad enough to catch a carpet cutter and a walking stick shouldn't act surprised when somebody hauls it into court over a can of pepper spray. Both sides here would rather argue the principle than the sewing kit.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Fig Leaf Rag · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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