New Jersey’s attorney general wants to settle a lawsuit that would end the state’s ban on civilians buying stun guns, according to ABC News..
The settlement talks involve a federal lawsuit filed in August by Mark Cheeseman and the New Jersey Second Amendment Society and stem from a US Supreme Court ruling that suggests stun guns are protected under the Second Amendment.
In a letter to the judge, Attorney General Christopher Porrino wrote “that an outright ban on the possession of stun guns within a state, regardless of the contextual circumstances surrounding any such possession, would likely not pass constitutional muster.”
Attorney Steven Stamboulieh, who represents the society and Cheeseman, said “it was a step in the right direction.” However, he wants the judge to first find the ban unconstitutional.
New Jersey is one of five states – Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island are the others – that prohibits civilians from buying stun guns. Other cities and counties also have bans.
In court papers, Cheeseman said Taser International declined his order for a Taser Pulse model because the state bans the sale of such merchandise. Cheeseman said he wanted a nonlethal way to protect himself and his family and is seeking attorney fees
Porrino cited a US Supreme Court ruling in March that overturned a Massachusetts court that had upheld that state’s ban in the case of a homeless woman, Jaime Caetano, who used a stun gun to scare away a former boyfriend.
Justice Samuel Alito Jr. wrote in a concurrence that, “by arming herself, Caetano was able to protect against a physical threat that restraining orders had proved useless to prevent. And, commendably, she did so by using a weapon that posed little, if any, danger of permanently harming either herself or the father of her children.”
