Phil Murphy new jersey smart gun law
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signs another gun control bill. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

This is what passes for progress in the gun-controlled paradise that is New Jersey. The state has finally repealed a law that required all guns sold in the Garden State to be so-called smart guns once smart guns are available for sale anywhere in the United States.

That law acted as a poison pill for 17 years, preventing the development and sale of “smart guns” nationwide as no manufacturer or retailer wanted to trigger the law and limit New Jersey’s gun owners’ choice of firearms. If triggered, it would have become a virtual ban on the sale of firearms in the state.

Never mind that the state of the smart gun art is still something far less than reliable, thanks in large part to the new Jersey law. The first smart gun that was touted as market ready was an utter failure that was easily hacked and its safety mechanism disabled.

But besides repealing the old poison pill law, a new bill that was signed into law yesterday by Governor Phil Murphy now requires that every gun store in the state will be required to sell at least one smart gun model. Not only that, but a state commission will be established to approve the smart guns that can be sold there.

What could possibly go wrong?

BERKELEY HEIGHTS, N.J. (AP) — Gov. Phil Murphy on Tuesday signed into law a measure to make so-called smart guns available in the state, reversing his predecessor’s vetoes of similar legislation.

Murphy, a Democrat, signed the bill at Governor Livingston High School alongside Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, lawmakers, local officials and at least a couple dozen members of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America who were wearing red T-shirts.

The measure sets up a commission to approve smart guns, which are personalized firearms that can be fired only by authorized users. The measure also repeals part of a 2002 law that was blamed for the slow pace of getting smart guns to market.

The new measure also requires that retailers offer a personalized gun for sale as they become available.

Murphy said he is confident the new law will succeed because it will allow research and development on smart guns to go forward, unlike prior law.

“The last one had the unintended consequence … which basically allowed the enormous amount of pressure on the gun manufacturers to not pursue the R&D that was necessary.”

Murphy was referencing the 2002 law that said when a smart gun became available anywhere in the country, New Jersey retailers could offer only those weapons for sale.

Second Amendment rights supporters pushed back against the development of smart guns over concerns that their marketability would amount to a handgun ban in New Jersey, according to Murphy and the law’s sponsors.

Republican Chris Christie vetoed similar legislation in 2016, saying that the Democrat-led Legislature was seeking to make the state as “inhospitable” to gun owners as possible.

Scott Bach, the head of the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, criticized the law and said lawmaker were trying to force smart guns into the marketplace.

“Swapping one failed mandate for another dooms smart guns to failure,” Bach said.

Murphy also signed three other measures aimed at stopping gun violence. One bill requires that the attorney general and health commissioner come up with a suicide prevention and training course for gun sellers.

Another bill restricts people convicted of serious crimes from buying firearms, as well as barring the sale of guns without a serial number. A fourth bill makes it a crime to solicit a gun from someone who is already legally disqualified from buying a weapon.

Tuesday’s laws were the second batch of gun-related measures the first-term governor has signed. Murphy campaigned on a platform of strengthening New Jersey’s already strong gun control measures.

“I am proud to work with our legislators to implement some of the toughest gun laws in the country to protect our residents and make our communities safer for all,” Murphy said Tuesday.

Among the bills he signed in 2018 was a measure reducing magazine capacity from 15 to 10 rounds as well as legislation requiring mental health professionals to warn law enforcement if a patient threatens serious violence against themselves or others.

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119 COMMENTS

      • By which you mean unlicensed gunsmithing. These ‘ghost gun’ laws go a lot farther than simply 80% AR parts. Sadly, this aspect goes unnoticed even in gun media for the most part.

        • Gunsmithing involves commerce – one person working on guns for another person and receiving compensation for it.

          Doing something for yourself isn’t the same.

      • It was already a felony to use an 80% frames (yes i said FELONY any crime that involves a gun in new jersey is an automatic FELONY). To make your own gun and not be committing a crime you would have to have the proper permits and zoning allowances. So they made a law at the state level that is already a law at federal level just because they can.

        • Um, there’s no federal law against building your own gun, or against the sales of 80% receivers.

          A state-level law will fail in court upon challenge (CA is considering such a law, too). If the argument is presented by the State that its citizens are no longer allowed to make implements for their personal defense, then the State will have to go the distance with that logic and ban anyone from making their own knife, or from fashioning a stout walking stick that doubles as a club for protection when hiking.

          Really, these Demtards are off their rocker.

      • The whole point of 80% lowers is they are not firearms, and that is why they can be sold unserialized. The ATF had to make a determination in the question “where in the manufacturing process does a ‘firearm’ become a ‘firearm’ in the eyes of the law?” The answer was over 80% complete. At 80% complete, not a firearm, over that, now a firearm, and requires a serial number to be transferred.

        Otherwise, you have the situation where a hunk of steel or aluminum is a firearm and having it is” constructive possession.” So, 80% lowers are not firearms and under our current laws, making them into firearms for your personal use does not require serialization.

        • And removing 80% lowers from the market would, like all bans, accomplish nothing. An AR lower can be made from nothing but an aluminum billet. It just takes longer, since there is more material to remove, and you’ll have a lot bigger pile of swarf once done.

      • Which aren’t guns until they are made into guns, after which there is a federal law banning their transfer.

        • “Which aren’t guns until they are made into guns, after which there is a federal law banning their transfer.”

          As I understand it, *sale* is forbidden, but gifting is not expressly forbidden.

          If I’m wrong on that, someone please chime in…

        • My understanding is that if you wish to transfer a now – finished lower, it must be serialized. ATF has guidelines for how to do it properly.

        • Except for NFA items, there is no federal law requiring a serial number on a personally made firearm. There is no federal law preventing the sale of a personally made firearm, serial number or not. The only thing that is federally prohibited is manufacturing WITH THE INTENT to sell it. That requires an 07 FFL and the firearms made under that license must have to have serial numbers. The ATF does SUGGEST applying a serial number to a personally made firearm if/when you decide to sell it, simply for a bill of sale for your own records.

    • @Cruzo,

      Only if you’re engaged in the business of manufacturing for the purpose of sales. If you’re a private individual, the ATF has confirmed that you can make your own firearm without the need of a serial #, then later sell or transfer it if you didn’t have the intention of sale or transfer at the time you made/assembled it.

    • Why are they stopping at gun stores? This is a wonderful idea, state government ordering stores to sell this and not sell that! What could go wrong? They should order ALL stores to sell at least one model of smartgun. Including, like, grocery stores and pet stores, etc.

      • The first big issue is that currently the technology is flawed for the purpose. The prototypes remain just that, prototypes. We’re years away from a prototype that’s ready for rollout (a little bird in the know at the ATF told me this). Second, the cost is prohibitive. Even the estimate of how much it will go down in price once it’s industry wide, is still a significant barrier. Third (and this is a very important and unsatisfactorally addressed issue), If it’s programmable, it can be hacked. Until there’s a significant breakthough on security, it’s too vulnerable to third party interference. Last, do you really trust the government not to meddle? Not to insist on a remote control code enabling the government or its operatives to shut down all “smart guns” in the event of civil unrest? You trust the very government that tries to step around the 2nd Amendment at every opportunity to not use the technology against its citizens? If so, I have some Ocean Front property in Colorado For Sale.

  4. sweet!

    So I can finally lay my hands on that sweet sweet 1800.00 .22 caliber pistol?!

    …..can’t wait….

    • So the gun shops have to sell a smart gun. Do they have to carry minimum inventory or can they have a demonstrator and make special orders for the customer?

      With the “success” of this law the next stage will be a minimum percentage sales quota of smart guns. Remember any number multiplied by zero is still zero. Zero smart gun sales equals zero other gun sales.

    • Well, he’s dead now, so his opinions matter just as little as those old, white slave owners they tell us to ignore, lol

      • John Paul Stevens
        Born: April 20, 1920 (age 99 years),

        Not dead yet. still able to shit on the constitution he swore to uphold.

        • Oh that’s really good news.
          I’m taking the family out to a steakhouse when RBG goes. We’re ordering a bottle of wine to the table too.

  6. I’ve got a revolver that only works if you’re wearing a special ring. It must be at least 30 years old by now. Does this not count?

  7. What man creates man can break.
    If this has any device that uses radio waves to activate it associated with it it will be easy to either disable to bypass the weapon. If it relies on fingerprints, ever read the constant complains on various boards about fingerprint scanner failures on cellphones? Plus they have fooled that type of scanner with a lifted fingerprint. Here is Mythbusters demonstrating the technique https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hji3kp_i9k

    • Forget that, I am thinking that you take a dremel or JB weld to the locking device that blocks the firing pin. Easy enough. I bet you could get a YouTube video out within a day. The NRA used magnets to defeat Armitix. Someone queue the “how do they work” ICP memes.

    • Depend of what the Firearm is made of! Approximately 30 mil or ~0.762mm of Aluminum (i.e. about the thickness of a Credit Card) will block a RFID signal. Steel even better…

  8. The law only restrains the law-abiding.
    Meanwhile in the real world, you have anarchists and communists boasting about flagrantly breaking gun laws to fight ‘fascists’, the Moms Demanding Action are just a front for the leftist authoritarians. Change my mind. I agree that many of the laws are unconstitutional, and consequently unlawful but tptb seem to look the other way for the Red Book crowd. Again, change my mind.

    • You get it. NJ, like other left utopias, is all about the feelz and emotions. They believe with the stroke of Murphy’s pen the desired outcome is now in effect. That it would not work or people won’t comply isn’t factored in. When the crass people don’t follow their laws they want the cops to come down with SWAT raids and lock them somewhere up for years.

      It’s a nice fantasy but doesn’t address the real problems NJ has. Violent crime is mainly in the urban and bombed out areas anyway. Their big problem is people fleeing the state and taking their earning ability with them. The replacement residents live under the radar and cost far more than they spend at the grocery store or gas station.

      Murphy is in trouble with his own kind. He’s likely a one termer who is trying to earn points with the left. The state’s unfunded liabilities are the iceberg NJ is heading toward and he’s not able to turn it.

      • Same thing here in New York especially with the also dwindling replacement population. Even if we got the illegals amnesty we are likely to see some actual ghost towns in less than a generation. Oh and Roh dog, nothing to change that’s worth the bother. You are functionality correct on all counts the rest is just label trivia.

  9. So, how would it pass constitutional muster to force a private business to sell a particular good (or service, for that matter)? Basically, this amounts to forcing a business owner to use his own money to purchase something and make it available for sale. Where did We The People ever give the government the authority to force such a transaction?

        • Leslie,

          SCOTUS ruled that the mandate portion of the ACA constitutes a tax, nothing more. When the GOP later nullified that portion of the ACA and removed the penalty, the logical dominoes began to fall, resulting in the Federal judge ruling last December that the ACA is now – as it currently stands – unconstitutional because it mandates participation in commerce.

          • If that’s the case, a simple Executive Order or Memorandum issued by Donald Trump would be sufficient to Nullify the ACA on the spot. So why hasn’t he done it yet…

        • @Leslie,

          The ACA is law passed by Congress. It must be nullified by Congress. The Executive cannot do it.

        • Not to mention all tax laws constitutionally have to originate in the House, not the senate. Obamacare originated in the senate, and after being declared a tax, that alone should have nullified the law.

        • @pg2,

          That’s correct, and I don’t know why the GOP didn’t have its constitutional lawyers jump all over that. It may have been that the polls (I hate polls, but they’re the standard by which politicians put their fingers into the wind) at the time seemed to show above 50% general support for the ACA.

      • Obamacare would like a word with you.

        Related, but different. ObamaCare compels the consumer to engage in commerce/enter into contractual relationship with a service provider. (Though, I suppose that ObamaCare also compels insurance carriers to offer specific types of insurance.) The difference is, it doesn’t cost an insurance company anything to *offer* a particular insurance plan; whereas this law compels every LGS to incur a non-trivial cost to purchase and stock a particular product, determined by the state – with no guarantee that said product will ever be purchased, and therefore with no guarantee that the LGS will ever recoup the cost spent to purchase and stock that product.

        (Purchase and stock are listed separately, because both have a cost. Display space is finite, and being forced to stock/display a dictated “smart” gun denies the use of that space to display a firearm of the LGS’s own choosing – a firearm that very well may be more appealing to firearm purchasers.)

        • “Though, I suppose that ObamaCare also compels insurance carriers to offer specific types of insurance”
          It certainly does and that raises the cost considerably.
          55 year old couples have maternity care in their policies. Plenty of other things are now Free to the Insured and that costs money. The people who gamed the system get a rather lush policy we workers pay for through higher premiums dn deductibles.

          But let’s not get off topic. Pg2 will be here next telling us how vaccines are evil and covered under Big O care.

        • But I’m a leg humper, too, so I guess we’re all in the same boat.

          BTW, you must have the vaxx in you.

    • Commerce Clause. You can do anything with that.That’s how even the partial birth abortion law was enacted. The murder part was unimportant compared to how it effected interstate commerce.

      • The shredded remnants of the commerce clause only applies to the federal government. States can do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t violate individual protections under the Bill of Rights. (And yes, I typed that with a straight face.)

    • The way I’m reading that, which probably isn’t the way New Jersey lawmakers intended, is that ‘offering for sale’ and ‘keeping in stock’ are two entirely different things. If someone wants one it would simply be illegal for the dealer to refuse to order one.

      • The way I’m reading that, which probably isn’t the way New Jersey lawmakers intended, is that ‘offering for sale’ and ‘keeping in stock’ are two entirely different things. If someone wants one it would simply be illegal for the dealer to refuse to order one.

        I could buy that take. Of course, what are the odds that NJ will interpret the law differently, and try to compel LGS to stock said state-approved smart guns?

        • Might be what you call a ‘loophole’. As soon as they fail to successfully prosecute a case they’ll have to go back and fix it.

  12. So New Jersey now has a law requiring gun dealers in the state to sell “smart” guns (they have dealers in NJ??). But they don’t have a law that requires its residents to buy them, right? I think those smart guns will gather a lot of dust in the LGS display cases before anybody does buy them voluntarily. But depend on the NJ legislature to notice this and pass a law requiring gun owners to buy “smart” guns.

    • “But they don’t have a law that requires its residents to buy them, right?”

      Yet.

      That’s the next step, obviously. And nothing but ‘smart guns’ will be sold until the challenge winds its way for *years* through the courts.

      This is their new M.O., how they will infringe the 2A. Via the courts, and the *years* of time it takes to get final resolution. They won’t beat the rap, but they can force us to take the ride.

      C’mon, strict scrutiny. We need ya, baby. Now, more than ever…

  13. “But they don’t have a law that requires its residents to buy them, right?”
    That’s next.

  14. So what’s to stop N.J. and Bloomberg from setting up a front company to produce a “smart” gun of dubious quality and offer it for sale for the low, low price of $100,000? LGS, stock it or close your doors! Does the law require you to have one in stock or is it enough that like many other options, they can order one in for you with a deposit?

    • They aren’t in that big a hurry nor have any desire to play games like that. The smart gun law revision is a stepping stone. They are also heading off potential SCOTUS trouble the previous version had.
      The state regulates and licenses gun stores (boy do they ever) so they can dictate all kinds of things. Like you can’t even handle a gun without presenting a FOID from NJ, that’s one rule.
      As to stocking the guns there are ways around it. A chain of stores could have one in the warehouse and several stores would be covered by it. The LGS gets shorted but if you are a LGS in communist NJ you have to expect it to be difficult.
      As long as FFLs don’t have to have a smart gun to “offer” their clients people can order guns into the state and do a transfer for it.
      Or move out.

  15. As a practical matter, I don’t see how this alters the landscape to any significant extent. Each dealer can “offer” a smart gun (e.g., if you want a smart gun, I will contact a dealer and order one for you) for the low, low price of $87,000.

    Gun is offered for sale, dealer had to print up a flyer, at most.

    • Correct me if I’m wrong, but does Firearms Manufacturers post information services as to where and by who sell their products!/? More than 50% of my emails are from Firearms Manufacturers and they’ll post a list of available Firearms Dealer on request by anyone that interested…

  16. Does it say how many they have to stock? And all gas stations have to sell tampons?

    • in NJ drivers are considered too inept to operate gas pumps themselves. Tampons would mystify half the population and trigger someone.

  17. I didn’t know that until NJ was exempt from the federal prohibition against selling guns to prohibited persons. /Sarc.

  18. There is definitely something in the water in NJ that turns liberals into pure stone idiots.

  19. NJ Americas toxic waste dump. I thought ny was bad but it appears NJ is worse. I wonder what they intend to do with the thousands of dealers that can’t sell these things. Great going demoshits

  20. Any “smart gun” that requires wireless communication with an outside source can be taken over from a distance. Once that vulnerability is found there will be massive problems, and probably recalls, since once someone is in they can change can fuck around in either direction, disabling security protocols or enabling them in a way that locks out the user.

    Just ask Medtronic about what “involuntary recall for safety concerns” means.

  21. As soon as President Trump finishes the Mexican border wall, I know where to build the next one and unlike the Mexican wall I suggest that this wall have machine gun turrets every 100 feet and a 70 foot wide landmine strip right in front of it. Either that or just kick N.J., N.Y., Connecticut, R.I., and Mass. out of the USA. They’re far more trouble than they are worth.

  22. I’m not in NJ, nor do I ever intend to live there, so I haven’t read the law. Is there anything in the law that requires that the guns be in stock? Couldn’t a dealer say, “You want me to order you a SmertGun9? No problem. The price is $5M, half payable in advance.”?

  23. “Murphy said he is confident the new law will succeed because it will allow research and development on smart guns to go forward, unlike prior law.”

    The fallacy of “Murphy’s Law” is that a smart gun is still a gun and a gun – any gun – is an item of violence. To many social democrats the smart gun is the worst stop gap measure going. Only by taking violent means out of the hands of clear thinking individuals can violence be prevented.

    Our education system provides for anti-violence “training”. Anti-violence training is most effective on children. Demonstrating to children how “bad” guns are is the key to turning the tide against the 2A and their proponents. When your own child says he/she does not want guns in the house, what parent would say no to such a request? Indeed children will be come the cornerstone of a national firearms ban. It may take a generation but the results will be irrefutable – a gun-free country. The beginning of the end starts in 2020 when a Black Woman is named president of a gun-free country.

    • “When your own child says he/she does not want guns in the house, what parent would say no to such a request?”
      First of all no child of mine would ever make such a request, as they have all been taught firearms handling and safety since they were old enough to accidently pick up a firearm. We had at least one Saturday a month as range day, most months more until the youngest was grown and living in their own homes.
      Secondly the children in my household never set the house rules, they just abided by the rules the parents set for them.
      More importantly, if, and that’s a great big if, we end up with a black woman as President any time in the future, (one will not be elected in 2020) there is still that little item called the Second Amendment to The Constitution that takes a super majority of the Congress, then a super majority of the state legislatures to overturn, or amend.

    • We are social justice warrior Vlad Tepes and you are not, you are racist. Our daddy just sits in the basement and cries and rocks back and forth, all day long. He will never be a strong woman like me and mommy. The children will kick all the guns out of all the houses and we will take all the guns. You will be assimilated, you must comply, resistance is futile. #HomelessGuns #BigGirlPantiesNow #WeHateMommy

  24. Eh, could have been worse. If he declares “Mission Accomplished” and moves on, it’ll be better than I expected.

    The laws not sent up for vote:
    *Requirement to renew FID
    *Reporting ammo sales to state police
    *Storage law

  25. Mouthpieces can spout “NOBODY WANTS TO TAKE YOUR GUNS” all they want but too many politicians and leftist figures have shown their hand for it to be taken seriously. Similarly, NJ has already shown what it wants to do. The year after smart guns become available they will simply do what they did here, but in reverse. In the meantime whenever someone points that out they’ll take on a pompous tone and say “There is no such law, stop believing propaganda.”

  26. This is a ploy to get shitty obligatory smart guns on the shelves to satisfy the requirement, then they’ll swoop in and ban everything but those guns.

  27. Where I wonder are gun shops in N.J. supposed to obtain the mdse., the Smart Guns so called, they seemingly are now required to sell. Oh by the way, another point of curiosity. Are the arms of New Jersey Law Enforcement required to be “smart guns”? If not, how come?

    • Law enforcement may be forced to buy these smart guns from their dealers especially if their dealers sell only to law enforcement. Additionally law enforcement dealers may be forced to close along with consumer dealers due to inability to acquire smart guns.

  28. the gun is for cowards scared that someone will shoot them with their own gun. it is for gov to have guns that only gov can use. it is disarming people.

    it is a really bad idea and all americans hate it except people who are in a cult.

  29. I’m guessing on the chess board of gunms this is going to be a move for future restrictions. I still believe Paddock is alive, it got bumpstocks banned, ATBAFE said they were legal, then said they weren’t no one did nothing now there banned. Still might have some but your a felon now. A pawn took a Rook. Must have smart gunms same can of worms Paddock opened up.

  30. I love how this state mandated effort backfired so grandly. Just goes to show, you can’t make dramatic progress with the stroke of a pen.

    If only they’d learn a damn lesson from their failures now and again – but alas, stupid is as stupid does.

  31. 1.every gun is smarter than those NJ liberal “officials”
    2.the first smart guns will be the most dangerous guns around-unreliable and too slow to operate.
    3.what do you think those left-wing radicals’ response would be to a smart device that had to activate to allow: abortions, same-sex marriages,protesting the national anthem, filing a “me too” charge, wearing sneakers WITHOUT a flag on them, immigrating to the U.S.,getting health care, running for president, or complaining about Trump tweets?

    • Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the Elected Individual you voted for suppose to represent those that voted for them. If so, then there No Smarter and No Dumber then “We The People”, there one of us…

  34. sort of like a mandate from hell, bet the Gov’s next Mandate is that Harley sells Honda’s in its shops.

  35. This motherfucking govenor has shit for brains like all Democrats do. Fucking cocksucker.

  36. Will gun dealers that deal exclusively with law enforcement be forced to sell these? If yes will they be forced to compel their law enforcement customers to buy them or would merely having them available for sale be acceptable? What will happen if law enforcement is forced to buy them? If the gun dealers including law enforcement gun dealers are unable to acquire smart guns will they be forced to close? If all gun dealers are forced to close could the feds go after the state for interfering with interstate commerce. Also with all gun dealers closed could the law enforcement community band together against the laws since it harms public safety to choke off all guns and ammo from all law abiding including the police.

  37. New Jersey is the state where all gun rights go to die.

    And slingshot rights. Believe it or not, in New Jersey, slingshots are considered “handguns” and require a serial number, FPID card (which requites fingerprints, references, background checks, and fees), Permit to Purchase a Handgun (which also requites fingerprints, references, background checks, and fees), safe storage where minors can’t access it (wait, what about Dennis the Menace? He always had a slingshot in his back pocket, and he was a minor), etc.

    And you can’t carry a slingshot in your pocket like Dennis the Menace did, unless you have the impossible-to-obtain New Jersey CCW permit. The CCW permit in NJ is as rare as Bigfoot — rumors are that it exists, but nobody has ever seen one!

    And don’t you dare load your slingshot with hollow-point ammunition (they probably don’t make hollow-point ammunition for slingshots, but if they do it would be another felony in NJ).

    • So did “Spanky” McFarland from the “Our Gang” series, but then again, carrying an Open Carry Slingshot wasn’t against the law in the 1930′ or the 1960’s…

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