NJ Carry/Transit Options

[archon]

From an earlier thread that got "cancelled" because some fake user wanted to pretend he was a cop with "21 years of experience" questioned the integrity of the research contained herein. If you do suspect something is inaccurate in this post please notify me and I will follow up. I want to make sure those who are subjected to NJ's draconian gun policies have accurate information and I firmly believe what is below is just that. And if you are the fake user with "21 years of experience" please refrain from continuing to live your delusion online by responding to this post. People have a right to know what the law actually says especially when it is as restrictive as NJ gun regulation scheme.

Golden Rule When It Comes to Anything and Guns in NJ - Public policy in NJ is that, other then inside a fixed place of business or a domicile, the average citizen is highly discouraged from carrying and/or transporting any kind of firearm with the borders of New Jersey. In any case where carry or transit is permitted it is heavily regulated with the presumption that anyone carrying or transporting is doing so contrary to the law and public policy of the state. When in doubt always keep in mind that within NJ the average citizen is not meant to possess, carry, or transport a gun outside of their home or fixed place of business.

Your Carry Options

Carrying of pistols, handguns, and long guns in NJ is generally strictly prohibited except for very narrow categories. Unless you fall into one of these categories of people then assume that carrying any firearm outside of your house, curtilage, and/or fixed place of business is illegal.

Permit to Carry Handgun. NJ is considered a "may issue" state, however in practice it is a "no issue" state except in very rare circumstances. In order to qualify for a carry permit in NJ you must face a real and specific threat that cannot otherwise be reasonable mitigated through others means then carrying a firearm. Even cases where a person carries large sums of cash or jewelry do not qualify under this strict standard. Basically, the only way one would qualify for a carry permit in NJ is if they had a history of a violent stalker, were the target of repeated organized assaults, had active credible death threats, etc. In order to get a permit, an application must be filed with the chief of police (if none the superintendent of the state police) who will either recommend issuance or denial. Either way this will go to a superior court judge who will hold a hearing, take evidence and testimony, then either grant or deny the permit. If the permit is granted the judge can place whatever restrictions on it they would like. This means if you get one because you are afraid of being menaced by a stalker on your walk home from the bus, your restriction might be that you can only carry the gun between the bus stop and your house. There are currently about 1300 active carry permits for the 9 million residents of NJ. That means your chances of getting one, even if you do have some qualifying circumstances, are extremely low.

Become NJ Cop (or other qualified law enforcement agent). Generally NJ licensed law enforcement are allowed to carry both on duty and off duty. Out of state police are allowed to carry with limited restrictions. If you are an out of state cop who routinely comes into NJ off duty or lives in NJ but works in another state check with your commanding officer for restrictions and/or necessary paperwork to be able to carry in NJ.

Be A Retired Cop. A retired police officer, no matter in which jurisdiction they were an actual police officer, can go about getting a permit to carry much in the same manner as a citizen can but the presumption is toward granting the permit instead of denying it. If you are a retired police officer check with your local police chief to see what paperwork you must file to get a permit to carry.

Become a "Special Law Enforcement Officer". This used to be more of a loophole, but has largely been closed in the intervening years by the Legislature. Basically you find a political crony in a small town and have him talk whatever appointing authority in the local government into making you a special law enforcement officer. This confers some limited authority to carry a firearm on and off duty. This used to be a good "back door" into being able to carry a gun legally in NJ, but not so much anymore. If you can find a way though to get this appointment and you want to invest 240 hours in taking police academy classes you can still get a limited right to carry a gun off duty.

Bribe a Judge. Warning this is illegal so don't do it. But, there is always a rumor that some local superior court judge will quietly sign off on your permit paperwork for a certain "donation" to his campaign or another campaign war chest of his choosing. I don't know if these rumors are true, but I have heard them enough that I suspect it happens at least a few dozen times a year in the state.

These are the only legal ways you can carry a handgun in NJ as a citizen. There are no loopholes or other workarounds. You must either fit into one of these categories or you are carrying illegally once you leave your house, curtilage, or fixed place of business.

Your Transportation Options

NJ has similarly strict transportation laws. Basically to legally transport your firearm in NJ it must be in a case, unloaded, and secured separate from the ammo which must be in its own secure case. Guidance differs depending on the source if the cases must also be locked. Although the law probably does not require it, as a best practice, I would recommend you lock both cases too. Also cases must either be locked in a trunk or in the way back of a car, away from the immediate grab of the driver and/or passenger(s) that has no separate locking. trunk compartment.

Traveling with Long Guns and a FOID. If you have a FOID and are traveling solely with long guns then you do NOT need to meet one of the few travel exceptions delineated by NJ law. Guns still must be separate from ammo, unloaded, in different cases (and best practice is to lock both). Even if you have an FOID I would strongly advise against leaving long guns in your car for extended periods of time. You are just going to invite unwanted law enforcement contact if they are stolen or escalated contact if a police officer pulls you over and sees likely gun cases in an uncovered luggage compartment in something like an SUV.

Traveling with Long Guns and NO FOID. You must meet one of the exceptions under NJ law such as going to a gun range, gun smith, between residence and fixed place of business, etc. You also must take a direct route and only make stops that are necessary such and reasonable such as for gas, food, emergency, etc.

Traveling with a Pistol. It doesn't matter if you have an FOID or not. You must meet one of the exceptions under NJ for transit to be legal with a pistol. Also the pistol must be in separate cases from the ammo (and best practice is to lock both). You must also take a direct route and make only stops that are necessary and reasonable just like if you have no FOID with long guns.

Moving Into The State. There is an exception for moving into NJ. The move must be directly to your new residence though when you cross the state line with the caveat of reasonable and necessary stops. Your firearms don't have to come on the first moving truck, but you should be able to demonstrate that they are part of a concerted moving effort. Don't expect this exception to apply if you are slowly moving items from a storage unit over the course of many months or years. Case law is very sparse on this exception, but it would be best to make sure your firearms move into NJ within the first few weeks of taking up permanent residency in your new domicile. [U]Note: the move exception only covers firearms. NJ appellate courts have ruled it does not apply to magazines or banned types of ammo like hollow points.

Interstate Transport of Firearms. NJ recognizes the federal FOPA for interstate transportation of firearms. This only applies thought to firearms moving through the state to a destination other then NJ. It does NOT apply if your final destination is in NJ. Specifics of how you should transport firearms legally under the FOPA appear elsewhere on this forum, but generally it is very similar to traveling with NJ but you do not need to fit into one of the exceptions provided by NJ law. Keep guns unloaded, cased, separate from ammo which should also be cased and placed in a locked trunk or out of reach of the driver and/or passenger(s). Best practice is also to lock all cases.

This is pretty much the only way to carry and transport guns in NJ. Bottom line is NJ does not like guns and believes your average law abiding citizen should not own, possess, carry, or transport guns. Because Democrats run this state it will most likely remain this way for the near future unless the Supreme Court forces the few hold out "no issue" states to issue gun permits because it is a Second Amendment right (the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals which has jurisdiction over NJ has already turned back such a challenge so it is basically up to the Supreme Court now). Or we will need to get National Carry Reciprocity to force NJ to change its ways.

If fundamentally you do not agree with these restrictions, your best bet is not to live in NJ if you can avoid it. PA is of course pretty gun friendly even if you have to live in Philadelphia. It is also a reasonable commute most workplaces in South/Central Jersey. DE is better then NJ but is quickly becoming less and less gun friendly. You can still get a permit to carry in DE, but it will cost you a few hundred dollars and you will have to jump through a lot of hoops. NY (outside of NYC) is probably slightly better then NJ, but not by much these days. If you are stuck in NJ your best self defense strategy is looking into knives, OC spray, etc when in public. Keep a pistol and/or shotgun in your house for bonafide home defense, but don't shoot at anything that is not actively breaking into or entering your house. Anything else will most likely end with you up in jail.

[twency]

People have a right to know what the law actually says

Where is "Bribe a Judge" in the law?

And why do you continue to ignore LEOSA (an actual law)?

There ought to be a forum rule (maybe there is, I don't recall) against starting a new thread with the same post to get around your previous thread being locked.

[archon]

How does my post "ignore LEOSA"? Answer - it does not. I merely suggest that out of state LEO's check to make sure their out of duty carry is legal in NJ with their commanding officer.

The "bribe the judge" section is meant to demonstrate how broke the system is in NJ. It is not the actual law which is the problem.

[ungawa]

What purpose does this thread serve?

None.

Stop bringing it back. It's completely pointless.

But I am going to start a thread about how to change the orbit of the moon so that Earf experiences a continuous solar eclipse. But the plan requires me to round up 50 unicorns. And I only know the location of one. He has an NJ carry permit.

[scruff]

"Curtilage"? Is that a real word? Cause I gotta plead ignorance on that one. Curtilage. I know, Google is my friend, but damn, that's got a nasty ring to it. I mean, TLR n'at, but cartilage? I was skimming and that caught my eye. Whoops, that's curtilage, damn autocorrect. Wait, that's tl:dr - when I did TLR in caps. It takes it as a smiley, like "too long, I smiled and read it" which makes no fuckin sense. Anyway, çurtilage. I feel like a stupid idiot. Usually, if I don't know what a word means, I've at least heard the word before or it sounds enough like a word that I assume it's a word, but I'm like, blindsided by this one. Wait, what's with the curlicue "C"? Now I feel even more stupid cause I know there's a proper name for that, and I'd guess it's some French shit, but if I'm wrong about that, then I look even more stupid, but seriously, how do you get the curlicue "C" on an Android keyboard anyway? I mean, yeah, there are different virtual keyboards, but is there a standard way to get a curlicue or is it that my phone is like 4 or 5 years old or does it have something to do with the forum software or is the curlicue c even going to show up when somebody reads this? Maybe I should be using tapatalk I think I installed it once but I don't remember why I ended up not using it.

Anyway, thanks for posting again, cause stickies are good shit n'at especially when they're written by an authority. Unless the authority makes a mistake, then they turn into a bit of a shitstorm. And when there are too many stickies at the top of a forum and I need to scroll past them to find the first post. Well, I mean, stickies are posts too, but you know what I mean. Well, maybe it's not that big a deal cause I always use the "user" or "settings" button or whatever it is, or the "find new posts" button so I really don't ever see the stickies since I jump past them but stickies are good, especially the good ones.

So good luck with that. Because it seems to mean a lot to you. And who am I to say something is sticky-worthy. I mean, there must be some rules about how a stickie becomes a stickie. And I could probably get a bunch of people to agree with me and petition the mods if a potential stickie was really good, but the mods really stick to their guns even when a whole bunch of users think they're full of shit. Which is a hypothetical, cause I've never thought the mods are all full of shit, at least if I hypothetically thought so, I'd probably be too chicken-shit to say so because, you know. Anyway, I don't mean to suggest that your post isn't sticky-worthy, but that argument would at least keep the thread going for a while, since the thread really is pretty good, except for LEOSA. But don't bother quoting my post cause it got kind of long because I woke up and couldn't sleep, although it's nice in here with the window open, but if you quote my post and someone else quotes my post then everybody will have to scroll way down like having to scroll past a whole bunch of stickies because stupid people keep scrolling past the piles of stickies instead of reading them.

[39flathead]

Avoid Jersey like I do.
No citizen is held in bondage (Ungawas house guests excluded) so why step foot into that rathole?
Problem solved.

[Rosco the Iroc]

From an earlier thread that got "cancelled" because some fake user wanted to pretend he was a cop with "21 years of experience" questioned the integrity of the research contained herein. If you do suspect something is inaccurate in this post please notify me and I will follow up. I want to make sure those who are subjected to NJ's draconian gun policies have accurate information and I firmly believe what is below is just that. And if you are the fake user with "21 years of experience" please refrain from continuing to live your delusion online by responding to this post. People have a right to know what the law actually says especially when it is as restrictive as NJ gun regulation scheme.

You want neg rep and a longer ban? This is how. I could only give one of 2. But I'm sure the second will be along shortly.


I don't know about this unicorn NJ carry permit but here's one I know you should have-

[Coops]

I am not a moderator but I have moderated other forums and this post is not a sticky.
In addition, your attacks on other members and starting a new thread identical to a locked thread warrant discipline IMHO. Maybe that has already happened.
When you google "NJ carry options" your two posts come up near the top. People looking for information would be disappointed.

There are no references to actual law, no reference to the NJ gun forum, you mention bribery as a possible option but facetiousness is not called for in an informational post, no mention of armored car drivers or security people who have a better chance of getting a permit, no mention of an attorney helping you through the process.

Here is the actual application form
http://www.state.nj.us/njsp/info/pdf...rms/sp-642.pdf

People would be better served going to a site like this one for information
https://njgunpermitattorney.com/carry-permits/