By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
A trio of gun rights groups have joined with a private citizen who resides in Pennsauken Township, N.J. to file a federal lawsuit challenging the Garden State’s gun permitting process, and one-gun-a-month restriction, which they consider unconstitutional, according to Courthouse News.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, involves the Gun Owners of America, the Coalition of New Jersey Firearm Owners, Gun Owners Foundation and Christian Benton, the private citizen. Defendants are New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin and Pennsauken Township Police Chief Phil Olivo. Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Steven J. Harfenist in Lake Success, N.Y. and Stephen D. Stamboulieh in Olive Branch, Miss.
In the 35-page complaint, the plaintiffs assert that New Jersey “has one of the most hostile and onerous firearms regulatory regimes in the nation criminalizing, absent possession of the appropriate permit, almost all conduct relating to the constitutionally enumerated right to keep and bear arms.”
The lawsuit says Benton applied to the Pennsauken Township Police Department for two Permits to Purchase a Handgun (PPH) “on, or about, February 27, 2004.” However, as of June 18, the day on which the lawsuit was filed, Benton had received neither of his permits.
“This is well beyond the 30-day timeframe allowed by statute,” the lawsuit states.
“Prior to Benton’s current PPH application,” the lawsuit alleges, “Benton has applied for and received other permits to purchase. His first application took about 10 weeks (approximately 70 days) to receive, despite New Jersey law requiring the permits to purchase be issued in 30 days. However, the last time Benton applied for a PPH, it took approximately four months to issue. In other words, Chief Olivo’s actions continue to depart from the statutory requirement of 30 days.”
A call to the Pennsauken Township Police Department was not immediately returned.
The lawsuit further alleges the “New Jersey permitting scheme…is designed to make it difficult for Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights.”
The lawsuit refers to one of the most embarrassing and tragic examples of how wrong things can go in New Jersey, the case of the late Carol Bowne of Berlin Township. She was murdered in her own driveway by a former boyfriend against whom she had a restraining order.
She filed an application for a PPH, but it gathered dust at the Berlin Township Police Department for 42 days. “Had she been able to purchase a firearm to protect herself, this tragic outcome may have been different,” the lawsuit states.
Bowne was stabbed fatally by Michael Eitel, a convicted felon who subsequently committed suicide.
The lawsuit is seeking a declaration by the court that the challenged New Jersey gun laws “are unenforceable, unconstitutional, and violate the Second and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.”
Further, the complaint wants an order declaring the state’s “one-gun-a-month” restriction is also “unenforceable, unconstitutional, and violates the Second and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.”
Plaintiffs want a permanent injunction against enforcement of the laws, and they want the court to stop the state and police “from unlawfully delaying the exercise of the Second Amendment right to “keep and bear Arms.”
