Key Takeaways
- The Second Amendment Foundation filed an amicus brief in New Jersey’s Supreme Court regarding the denial of A.A.R.’s Firearms Purchaser Identification Card.
- SAF argues that A.A.R.’s denial stems from subjective criteria about his character, which violates the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen.
- SAF contends that the denial is also unconstitutional because it retaliates against A.A.R.’s online speech, protected by the First Amendment.
- Ten other states granted A.A.R. carry permits, highlighting New Jersey’s inconsistent standard against objective criteria.
- The New Jersey Supreme Court has yet to decide on whether to hear the case, which will determine if the state’s denial stands.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
BELLEVUE, WA — The Second Amendment Foundation filed an amicus brief with the New Jersey Supreme Court on September 8, 2026, in the Matter of the Gun Permit Appeal of A.A.R., backing the petitioner’s request that the court review the denial of his Firearms Purchaser Identification Card.
An amicus brief is a friend-of-the-court filing from an outside party with a stake in how the case comes out. The card at issue, the FPIC, is the document a person needs to own firearms in New Jersey, according to SAF’s announcement. SAF’s brief targets N.J.S.A. 2C:58-3(c)(5), the provision that lets licensing officials deny the card if they conclude issuance “would not be in the interest of the public health, safety or welfare because the person is found to be lacking the essential character of temperament necessary to be entrusted with a firearm.”
Per SAF, A.A.R. was denied the card in large part because of his online speech. He is not federally prohibited from owning a firearm. He holds carry permits in ten other states, and the list includes Massachusetts and Maryland, two states SAF describes as traditionally strict. Ten licensing authorities looked at this man and issued. New Jersey looked at his posts and refused.
SAF’s core argument is that this is exactly the kind of subjective suitability test the Supreme Court rejected in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. In plain terms, Bruen said a state can run a licensing system, but the criteria have to be narrow, objective, and definite, the sort of boxes an applicant either checks or does not. An official’s opinion about whether you have the right “character of temperament” is not a box. It has no fixed edges, and a standard with no fixed edges is one an official can apply however he likes.
Then there is the speech problem. The denial, as SAF describes it, rests on what A.A.R. said online. SAF’s position is that the First Amendment bars the government from retaliating against speech it disagrees with, even speech that is socially or politically objectionable, and that New Jersey cannot use protected speech as the public-safety hook to deny the card needed to exercise a Second Amendment right. Two constitutional rights are stacked in one denial.
“Bruen is clear: licensing officials may apply narrow, objective, and definite criteria,” said Kostas Moros, SAF Director of Legal Research and Education. “They may not sit in judgment of an applicant’s ‘character’ or ‘temperament.’ If ten other states, including several with some of the strictest gun laws in the country, issued this applicant carry permits, New Jersey’s outlier denial is powerful evidence of the very subjectivity the Supreme Court forbade. Protected speech, even if it is deeply offensive, cannot be converted into a reason to deny a Second Amendment right.”
The court has not agreed to hear the case. A request for review is just that, an ask, and the New Jersey Supreme Court chooses which appeals it takes. SAF’s account of the denial is SAF’s account, and the state will get its say if the court steps in.
More from USA Carry:
Ten states, several with strict licensing, ran this applicant through their systems and handed him carry permits. New Jersey, applying a temperament standard, would not let him have a card to own a gun. Either those ten states got it wrong or New Jersey’s standard is measuring something other than danger. That gap is the strongest evidence SAF has, because it shows how far a “character” test can drift once it is cut loose from objective criteria. Part of a serious carry mindset is knowing the rules change at every state line, but the constitutional floor is not supposed to move with them. Bruen set that floor, and this petition asks New Jersey’s highest court whether the state is standing on it.
I will continue tracking the Matter of the Gun Permit Appeal of A.A.R. as the New Jersey Supreme Court decides whether to take it up.
Read full article here