New Jersey passed one of the nation’s first “assault weapons” bans in 1990. On Friday, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals declared it unconstitutional. Thirty-six years of gun control theater, wiped out in a single ruling.
The Philadelphia-based appeals court — not exactly a hotbed of conservative jurisprudence — struck down both the state’s ban on semiautomatic rifles including the AR-15 and its prohibition on magazines holding more than 10 rounds. This is the first time a federal appeals court has ruled that a state’s assault weapons ban violates the Second Amendment. It is a landmark decision, and every gun rights advocate in America should understand what it means and why it matters.
The ruling flows directly from the Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision, which fundamentally changed how courts must evaluate gun regulations. Under Bruen, the government can’t simply assert that a gun law serves public safety — it must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the historical tradition of firearm regulation in America. New Jersey couldn’t do it. Nobody has been able to do it, because “assault weapons” bans have no grounding in American legal history whatsoever. They are modern inventions, designed by people who don’t understand firearms, built on aesthetics rather than function, and they were never going to survive serious constitutional scrutiny once the Supreme Court demanded actual historical analysis.
Here’s the firearms reality that every “assault weapons” ban proponent either doesn’t understand or deliberately ignores: an AR-15 with its “scary” black stock, pistol grip, and flash hider functions identically to a wood-stocked hunting rifle of equivalent caliber. The cosmetic features that triggered New Jersey’s ban have zero bearing on how the firearm operates. The AR-15 platform fires the 5.56mm cartridge — considerably less powerful than the rounds fired by many common hunting rifles that nobody proposes banning. The entire legislative premise of “assault weapons” legislation is a fiction built on appearance rather than function, and the 3rd Circuit finally called it what it is.
The NRA’s Executive Director John Commerford said it plainly: this ruling affirms that commonly-owned rifles and standard-capacity magazines are fundamental rights that cannot be infringed by politicians who prioritize control over constitutional freedom. He’s right. The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in America — owned by millions of law-abiding citizens for hunting, sport shooting, and self-defense. A weapon in such widespread common use is exactly what Bruen and Heller protect.
New Jersey will almost certainly appeal. The Supreme Court may ultimately take this case along with similar challenges working their way through other circuits. That’s fine. The constitutional trajectory is clear and has been since Bruen — and every honest reading of that decision points in the same direction this ruling went.
The Second Amendment says shall not be infringed. The 3rd Circuit just remembered that. About time.
