Key Takeaways
- The gun rights coalition claims New Jersey’s sensitive places carry law is unconstitutional following recent Supreme Court rulings.
- In Koons v. Attorney General of New Jersey, plaintiffs argue that decisions in Wolford v. Lopez and United States v. Hemani invalidate New Jersey’s restrictions on carry permits.
- The brief highlights how New Jersey’s law creates significant criminal exposure for permit holders through its extensive list of banned locations.
- Plaintiffs believe the Supreme Court’s rationale in recent cases undermines New Jersey’s attempts to restrict carry rights, referencing history and legality.
- With an en banc Third Circuit review underway, the outcome of this case may significantly impact New Jersey’s gun laws post-Bruen.
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PHILADELPHIA, PA — The gun rights coalition challenging New Jersey’s sweeping “sensitive places” carry law just filed a supplemental brief telling the en banc Third Circuit that the Supreme Court has already done most of the court’s work for it.
The July 8 filing in Koons v. Attorney General of New Jersey argues that two Supreme Court decisions handed down in late June, Wolford v. Lopez and United States v. Hemani, leave New Jersey with no path to save Chapter 131, the law Trenton rushed through after Bruen to turn most of the state into a no-carry zone for licensed citizens.
The plaintiffs include the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, Coalition of New Jersey Firearm Owners, New Jersey Second Amendment Society, and four individual permit holders led by Ronald Koons.
Start with the strongest piece. In Wolford, the Court struck down Hawaii’s rule that presumptively banned licensed carry on private property open to the public unless the owner gave express permission. New Jersey has a materially identical provision, and the Wolford opinion specifically cited New Jersey’s statute as one of the laws that flipped the traditional default rule after Bruen. The brief argues the conclusion is unavoidable: New Jersey’s private property default rule “has been struck down as inconsistent with the Second Amendment and can no longer stand.”
I want to be precise here, because precision is what separates us from press release journalism. Wolford formally invalidated Hawaii’s law, not New Jersey’s. But when the Supreme Court holds that laws prohibiting carry on private property without affirmative owner consent violate the Second Amendment, and then cites New Jersey’s statute by section number as an example of that exact scheme, the writing is on the wall. The Third Circuit would have to ignore a direct instruction to uphold it.
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The rest of Chapter 131 is where the real fight remains. New Jersey makes it a third degree crime, carrying up to five years in prison, to carry in 25 categories of locations, including libraries, museums, bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, and entertainment venues. It also bans carrying a functional handgun in any vehicle. Wolford did not rule on those location-specific bans directly. But the brief argues the Court’s reasoning cuts straight through them.
The plaintiffs point to the Wolford majority’s hypothetical of a young woman with a carry permit going about an ordinary day, who by the end of it “could be a criminal at least six times over.” The brief walks through the New Jersey version: a morning trip to the library, lunch at a restaurant that serves alcohol, and the drive in between would each expose a permit holder to felony charges and years in prison. That, the plaintiffs argue, is exactly the kind of scheme the Court said “severely hampers” the right Bruen recognized.
Then there’s the history problem. Both June decisions tightened the screws on what counts as a valid historical analogue under Bruen. Wolford held that an analogue must be “widespread, well-known, and widely accepted,” and that outlier laws from a few locales prove nothing. It also rejected Hawaii’s reliance on a Reconstruction-era Black Code, calling the argument that a racist statute illuminates the original understanding of the right one that “cannot be taken seriously.” New Jersey leaned on Louisiana and Texas Black Codes in this very case.
Hemani, decided a week earlier, unanimously held that the federal ban on gun possession by drug users was unconstitutional as applied to a man whose marijuana use never rendered him dangerous or incapacitated. The Koons brief uses Hemani to dismantle the vacated panel decision’s alcohol-venue reasoning. The panel had pointed to Founding-era laws about drunks and taverns. Hemani read those same laws narrowly, as reaching only people whose drinking left them practically incapacitated. A law that disarms every sober permit holder who walks into an Olive Garden, as the brief puts it, sweeps in exactly the people history never touched.
Some quick procedural context. A three-judge panel upheld most of the sensitive places list 2-1 in September 2025. The full Third Circuit vacated that decision in December, granted en banc review, and heard argument on February 11, 2026. The court has been sitting on the case since, and the widespread assumption among court watchers was that it was waiting for Wolford and Hemani before writing. Those decisions are now in, both sides have filed their supplemental briefs, and the case is ripe for decision.
One housekeeping note: the case is still widely known as Koons v. Platkin, but Matthew Platkin left office in January. Jennifer Davenport is now New Jersey’s Attorney General, confirmed unanimously in February, and her office inherits the defense of Chapter 131.
The plaintiffs are asking the en banc court to affirm the district court’s preliminary injunction in full. Given a reshaped Third Circuit with a Republican-appointed majority and two Supreme Court decisions that read like a roadmap for striking this law down, New Jersey’s post-Bruen experiment in legislating around a constitutional right is on borrowed time.
I’ll be tracking this case and will report on the en banc decision when it comes down.
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