New Jersey Loses Its Assault Weapons Ban in Court, So Lawmakers Dust Off a Five-Year-Old Bill Targeting How You Store Your Guns

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

TRENTON, NJ — New Jersey Assembly Democrats have a mandatory gun storage bill sitting in committee, and its lead sponsor says it is next in line. Assembly Bill A3560, the “New Jersey Safe Storage of Firearms Act,” was introduced January 13, 2026, and referred to the Assembly Judiciary Committee. The text is blunt. A legal owner must store any firearm “not in use” unloaded, in a gun safe or securely locked box or container, and must store ammunition separately from the firearm. The bill also repeals the state’s existing law governing a minor’s access to firearms, directs the Attorney General to run a public awareness campaign on storage, and appropriates $500,000 to do it. Per the bill’s own synopsis, it establishes penalties for violations.

The timing is not a coincidence, as reported by POLITICO. Last week the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals struck down New Jersey’s 36-year-old ban on so-called assault weapons and its prohibition on magazines holding more than 10 rounds. Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who campaigned on expanding the state’s gun restrictions, responded by saying she is going to “keep testing the courts.” Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald, A3560’s lead sponsor, called the storage bill “the next thing I’m looking to do.” Versions of it have been kicking around the statehouse since 2021 without ever reaching a floor vote.

The bill is a partisan effort, sponsored by Greenwald and Assemblyman Michael Venezia with seven Democratic co-sponsors. Its legislative findings section makes the case in the Legislature’s own words: it claims firearm ownership in New Jersey surged more than 300 percent in 2020, cites 2018 unintentional death figures, and leans on medical associations that have declared gun violence a public health crisis. Those are the bill’s assertions, and they tell you exactly how its authors think about the guns in your home.

The sponsors will point to the carve-out. Subsection b of the storage mandate says nothing in the section prevents an owner authorized under N.J.S.2C:39-6 from lawfully keeping or carrying a firearm about their place of business, residence, or premises. That language is in the text, and it matters.

But read the mandate again, because “not in use” is doing an enormous amount of work. The bill never answers the question every armed citizen will ask first: is the handgun on my nightstand at 2 a.m. “in use”? If the state’s answer is no, then the default legal condition of a home defense gun in New Jersey becomes unloaded, locked in a container, with the ammunition stored somewhere else entirely. Anyone who has trained for a break-in knows what those extra steps cost when you are facing an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm. Seconds, in the dark, under stress. Storage decisions are serious. But they belong to training and mindset, weighed against each household’s real circumstances, not to a one-size mandate written in Trenton.

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The larger pattern is worth naming too. The courts just told New Jersey that a 36-year-old centerpiece of its gun laws violates the Second Amendment, and the governor’s stated response is to keep passing laws and keep testing the courts. A3560 is the first test case. It has failed to reach a floor vote for five years, and now it has a governor’s momentum and a majority leader’s promise behind it.

I will continue tracking A3560 as it moves through the Assembly Judiciary Committee.