New Jersey’s Assault Weapons Ban Falls in Federal Court — Its Own Lawyers Couldn’t Rebut the Record Against It.
For 35 years, New Jersey defended one of the country’s toughest gun laws through governor after governor, legal challenge after legal challenge. On July 17, 2026, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled, 10–5, that the law violates the Second Amendment — and struck down not just the state’s assault-weapons ban, but its 10-round magazine cap too.
The ruling did not turn on a technicality. The court found that when New Jersey had the chance to rebut the plaintiffs’ evidence — roughly 24 million semi-automatic rifles of the banned type and more than 100 million standard-capacity magazines in lawful circulation nationwide — the state simply didn’t. “New Jersey does not provide any data or statistics of its own to contradict” that record, the majority wrote.
This is a governance story as much as a gun-rights one: a law signed by a Democratic governor in 1990, tightened by another in 2018, and defended for years by the state’s legal apparatus, just lost in the country’s highest-level court yet to rule on the question — on a 10–5 vote, not a unanimous one.
- 10–5 — the 3rd Circuit's en banc vote striking down New Jersey's assault weapons ban and magazine cap — per the court's July 17, 2026 opinion
- 35 years — how long New Jersey's assault-weapons ban stood, from Gov. Jim Florio's 1990 signature to this ruling
- ~24 million — semi-automatic rifles of the banned type in lawful circulation nationally — district court finding, adopted by the majority
- 100 million+ — standard-capacity magazines like the ones New Jersey capped at 10 rounds, currently in lawful circulation — per the opinion's footnote 48
- 0 — pieces of its own data or statistics New Jersey offered to rebut that record — per the majority opinion itself
New Jersey’s assault-weapons ban is not new law. Gov. Jim Florio (D-NJ) signed it on March 30, 1990, alongside a 15-round magazine cap, partly in response to a 1989 shooting at a Stockton, California elementary school that had pushed gun control onto governors’ agendas nationwide. It was, at the time, one of the first state-level bans of its kind in the country. Nearly three decades later, Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) tightened it further, signing a 2018 amendment that cut the magazine cap from 15 rounds to 10. Both laws survived years without a successful constitutional challenge.
That changed after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which reset the legal test lower courts must use in Second Amendment cases toward text and historical tradition. Plaintiffs sued New Jersey in 2018 and again, post-Bruen, in 2022. In July 2024, U.S. District Judge Peter G. Sheridan split the difference: he ruled the state’s ban unconstitutional as applied to the Colt AR-15 specifically, but left the magazine cap and the broader ban on other rifle models standing. Both sides appealed. The full 3rd Circuit reheard the case en banc on October 15, 2025, and ruled on July 17, 2026.
Writing for the majority, Circuit Judge Arianna Freeman — joined by Chief Judge Chagares and Judges Hardiman, Bibas, Porter, Matey, Montgomery-Reeves, and Bove, and in part by Judge Phipps — didn’t simply affirm Judge Sheridan’s narrow ruling on the Colt AR-15. The court modified and affirmed it: the finding of unconstitutionality now extends to the full class of semi-automatic rifles the ban covers, not just one model. And it reversed the district court outright on the magazine cap, holding that New Jersey’s 10-round limit also violates the Second Amendment. The remaining questions, covering other firearm types, were remanded back to Judge Sheridan for further proceedings.
Applying the Bruen framework, the majority leaned heavily on scale and lack of rebuttal. The district court had found roughly 24 million semi-automatic rifles of the banned type in lawful circulation nationally; the appellate opinion’s own footnote puts the number of 30-round magazines in circulation above 100 million. Under Bruen, a weapon in that kind of “common use” for lawful purposes is presumptively protected — and New Jersey, the court found, never offered competing numbers of its own.
“New Jersey does not provide any data or statistics of its own to contradict the sheer number of semi-automatic rifles in common use for lawful purposes.”
Majority opinion, ANJRPC v. Attorney General New Jersey
The U.S. Department of Justice filed an amicus brief backing the plaintiffs on September 19, 2025. New Jersey drew its own outside support: Everytown for Gun Safety and a 19-state-plus-D.C. coalition, led by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office, filed briefs defending the ban. New Jersey Solicitor General Jeremy Feigenbaum argued the case for the state.
This was not a unanimous rebuke of New Jersey’s law. Five judges dissented across three separate opinions. Judge Shwartz’s principal dissent, joined by Judges Krause, Restrepo, and Smith, argued the majority had lost sight of the actual constitutional question by treating a weapon’s current popularity as decisive.
“The Majority, however, holds that states cannot regulate weapons that are currently popular... [the Supreme Court instructs us] to keep our eye on the history and tradition of banning dangerous and unusual weapons... that gunmen have continued to use to commit crimes and mass shootings.”
Judge Shwartz, dissenting
Judge Krause and Judge Smith each also wrote separately. On the other side, Judge Matey wrote a concurrence, joined by Judge Mascott, that was openly dismissive of the state’s law. Judges Phipps and Montgomery-Reeves each filed additional concurrences of their own. Matey’s language was pointed: he called the statute “blunderbuss legislation” that has now failed “the last three trips to this Court,” and mocked the state’s shifting magazine-length line with a one-liner about how “sixteen rounds was large yesterday, eleven rounds is large today.” The spread between that concurrence and the Shwartz dissent is the real story of this ruling: a genuinely divided court, not a lopsided one, reached a result that nonetheless reshapes the law across three states.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) called the ruling “dangerous, wrong,” and “completely out of step with parents and the people of the Garden State.” Sherrill, who invoked her own decade of Navy service and her qualification as an expert shot in her statement, framed the decision as a fight she intends to keep having.
“We will not back down from extreme, right-wing attempts to weaken the laws of New Jersey.”
Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ)
New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport (her party affiliation was not independently confirmed for this piece) called the outcome “as unfortunate as it is legally incorrect,” and pointed out that “every other federal circuit court to consider the issue has come out the other way” — a real and relevant fact, since the 3rd Circuit’s ruling now stands out from other circuits that have upheld similar bans. Her office said it is “considering our options,” language that typically precedes a request for a stay or further appeal.
Statement By Attorney General Davenport on Decision in ANJRPC v. Attorney General.
Gun-rights groups treated the ruling as a landmark. NRA-ILA Executive Director John Commerford called it “a historic victory for the NRA, the Second Amendment, and law-abiding Americans,” and the NRA’s own statement noted the specific significance of which court had ruled.
In striking down New Jersey's bans, the Third Circuit — which covers Delaware and Pennsylvania in addition to New Jersey — became the highest-level court in the country to invalidate such laws.
The New Jersey Governor responds: 'We will not back down from extreme, right-wing attempts to weaken the laws of New Jersey.'
Gov. Jim Florio (D-NJ) — signed the original assault-weapons ban and 15-round magazine cap into law, March 30, 1990.
Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) — signed the 2018 amendment lowering the magazine cap to 10 rounds.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) — the sitting governor, calling the ruling “dangerous, wrong” and vowing not to “back down.”
Attorney General Jennifer Davenport — defended the law before the 3rd Circuit; her office is now “considering options” after the loss.
Solicitor General Jeremy Feigenbaum — argued the case for New Jersey.
This ruling binds only the 3rd Circuit — New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It does not strike down assault-weapons bans in California, New York, or any other state directly, and it arrives into a genuine circuit split: other federal appeals courts have upheld similar bans, which is exactly the point AG Davenport made in her statement. The Supreme Court has already granted certiorari in separate cases that touch this same question — Viramontes v. Cook County out of the 7th Circuit, and a 2nd Circuit carry-law case — and could have let those resolve the issue nationally. The en banc majority chose to rule now rather than wait.
New Jersey’s next move is unresolved as of publication. The Attorney General’s office has said only that it is weighing its options, which could mean asking the full circuit or the Supreme Court to stay the ruling while further appeals play out. Until that happens, a law three Democratic governors defended for 35 years no longer stands as written in the state that wrote it.
A law signed by Gov. Florio in 1990 and tightened by Gov. Murphy in 2018 just lost in federal court — not on a technicality, but because the state offered no data of its own to counter the record against it. The 10–5 vote and three separate dissents make clear this was a genuinely contested legal question, not a rout. It binds only three states for now, and New Jersey hasn’t said what it does next.
