Common sense is a word that is frequently used in the debate on firearms regulation. However, we have moved so far past any degree of common sense that the discussion has now come full circle. On Thursday, Feb. 20, the New Jersey Assembly Judiciary Committee, chaired by Assemblywoman Ellen Park, voted to release ten gun-related bills covering a wide range of topics.
New Jersey has passed so much gun control at this point that it feels like they are simply running out of things to say on the topic. The current bill package circulating in the Capitol reflects that perception. These bills would make it illegal to possess information, require law enforcement to confiscate holsters, slings, and gun cleaning kits in connection with domestic violence TROs (which already require seizing the actual firearms), make it a misdemeanor to recklessly shoot into buildings and schools, along with laws that would make it potentially impossible for police departments in the state to acquire firearms or ammunition.
If you, the reader, think you are trapped in a fever dream after reading that paragraph, I can assure you that you are awake, and unfortunately, this is the reality of things. Common sense has fully left the building.
The most bizarre of these bills is A4974. This bill attempts to create a new category of firearms components called “machine gun conversion devices” and establishes that the possession of a machine gun conversion device would be a crime of the 3rd degree (though in the session, Chairwoman Park mentioned that proposed revisions to this bill would reduce that to a 4th-degree crime).
This law was widely supported by Brady, Everytown, and Mom’s Demand Action. The problem of course is that, if signed into law, A4974 would make New Jersey the most lenient state in the nation with regards to the crime of possession of an illegal machine gun. In this bizarro world, the NJ legislature, Brady, Everytown, and MDA in their infinite quest to get tough on gun violence could, as a consequence, increase the proliferation of illegal machine guns in the state.
Under Federal law (the National Firearms Act and the Gun Control Act), there is no category for “machine gun conversion devices.” Federal law defines “machine gun conversion devices” as “machine guns” whether or not they are attached to a firearm. So under Federal law, this would include what is commonly referred to as “Glock switches” and drop-in auto sears.
Under Federal law, possession of an unregistered machine gun could potentially result in a ten-year prison sentence. Under New Jersey law, possession of an unregistered machine gun without a state license is a 2nd Degree crime and could also result in a ten-year prison sentence. And those charges and their sentences could be stacked. So, under the Federal definition (if New Jersey simply followed the Federal definition), someone caught trafficking a single illegal unregistered machine gun could face as much as 20 years in prison!
A4974 would make that a 3rd (or possibly a 4th) degree crime which would leave a first-time offender eligible for Pre-Trial Intervention (PTI) under current state guidelines. A slap on the wrist and a charge that could be easily expunged in a year for what could (and potentially should) be a twenty-year prison sentence for a major state and federal offense.
Moreover, A4974 creates an overly simplistic definition of what a “machine gun conversion device” is and because it is incongruous with the Federal definition, law enforcement agencies would now be forced to make their own determinations and classifications as to what is covered by this bill. That puts law-abiding New Jersey gun owners at serious risk of wrongful prosecution.
A match-grade drop-in trigger for a standard modern sporting rifle that any New Jersey gun owner might use for shooting competitions could easily be mistaken by law enforcement as a “machine gun conversion device” and law enforcement agencies in this state would be left to their own devices to test and independently determine if any such device produces more than one round being fired with a single trigger pull.
In 2023, Indiana, like many other states, enacted a law that also specifically addressed the proliferation of black-market Glock switches. Indiana House Bill 1365 provides a very simple solution to this problem: Indiana law now directly copies the Federal definition of a machine gun (which includes “machine gun conversion devices”) but specifically exempts anything not subject to registration under the National Firearms Act. This solution solves many problems.
- It provides extremely stiff penalties for possession of illegal machine guns,
- It allows Indiana to rely on both the Federal definition and classifications of machine guns made by the ATF, taking that arduous task out of the hands of state law enforcement agencies, and;
- It specifically exempts anything that falls outside of the scope of the NFA which provides uniform enforcement on this issue, better protecting law-abiding citizens engaging in lawful conduct.
While I am speaking for myself, I think it is safe to say that New Jersey law-abiding gun owners would agree that police agencies in the state should crack down on illegal arms trafficking. No one wants to see illegal machine guns in the hands of dangerous criminal elements in our inner cities and beyond.
The bizarro world that the New Jersey legislature has brought us to leaves me siding with the ATF on this issue (I am gritting my teeth as I write this). And while we have our own separate concerns about enforcement actions brought by the ATF on exactly these issues, they are at least subject to the Administrative Procedures Act. There are rules and limits on how far the ATF can take its rule-making authority. In a world post-Chevron Deference, I as a gun owner in this state feel much safer with the ATF making these determinations. The alternative of local municipal police officers being left to make classifications of firearms parts on the side of a road is much more frightening.
And for the record, the lobbyists for the police in this state opposed A4979 on Thursday which would mandate training for cops on what constitutes a “machine gun conversion device” under this ludicrous scheme.
In this bizarro world, up is down, black is white, the bills read on Thursday to the New Jersey Assembly Judiciary Committee are “common sense,” and I am somehow on the same side of the table as the ATF.
Maybe this is all just a fever dream.
If the NFA gets repealed at the federal level, how would this impact proposed laws like this in New Jersey?