Opinion
New Jersey –-(Ammoland.com)-There are an estimated one million-gun owners with standard capacity magazines (10+ rounds) in the State of New Jersey, bringing an estimated number of magazines holding more than ten rounds to around ten million. Some estimates even have this number being higher.
When New Jersey passed a law making these magazines illegal in 2018, there was a debate on whether the gun owners of the state would hand in their magazines. When the law went into effect at the end of last year, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and Attorney General Gurbir Grewal celebrated it as a victory against gun rights advocates.
AmmoLand news reached out to departments across the Garden State and the New Jersey State Police to see how many magazines were turned in for destruction. Local departments were quick to confirm that they did not receive any magazines turned in by the citizens of New Jersey. The State Police would not comment on the record on the number of magazines turned in by residents.
Off the record, State Police sources told AmmoLand no magazines were turned in. We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to get the official answer from State Police officials. Our first request went unanswered, so we sent another, then another, and so on until we finally received a response from the State Police.
SGT Kristina Pados of the New Jersey State Police responded to our FOIA request. She confirmed what our sources inside the New Jersey Police told us. The gun owners of New Jersey have surrendered no magazines.
However, she did state that local departments might have them.
AmmoLand reached out to local police departments across New Jersey and have not been able to find a single magazine turned over to the authorities. It would seem like the gun owners of New Jersey have decided to ignore the law most likely because it is unenforceable.
As previously reported New Jersey residents have been openly mocking Democrat Governor Phil Murphy on message boards and Facebook groups. This revelation feeds into the narrative that the new law was just a ploy to please the Governor’s anti-gun base.
According to sources inside the New Jersey law enforcement communities, they still have not received any guidance on how to enforce the magazine ban. New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal’s office still gives the evasive response of “not discussing law enforcement tactics” when pressed on why no guidance has been given to the State Police.
No law enforcement agency spoken to has charged anyone with having a standard capacity magazine. Short of going door to door there is no way of pro-actively enforcing the law. Law enforcement has not and are not planning on using this tactic.
When the law was going into effect, some agencies considered enforcing the ban as a secondary charge. Police would add on the charge of having an illegal magazine if a crime was committed with the magazine, but we have been unable to find anyone charged even under this circumstance.
Gov. Murphy has not commented on the failure of the new law. Last December the Governor’s office referred us to the New Jersey Attorney General’s office. This time we shared the FOIA response from the State Police with them, but they did not return our request for comment at the time of publication.
FOIA-NJSP Gun Magazine Ban
About John Crump
John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. He is the former CEO of Veritas Firearms, LLC and is the co-host of The Patriot-News Podcast which can be found at www.blogtalkradio.com/patriotnews. John has written extensively on the patriot movement including 3%’ers, Oath Keepers, and Militias. In addition to the Patriot movement, John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and is currently working on a book on leftist deplatforming methods and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, on Facebook at realjohncrump, or at www.crumpy.com.