Check this out, This is just how out of touch our SCUMBAG NJ POLITICIANS are . jmho
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There’s been a lot of discussion about this elsewhere.
The theory, since this was introduced in part by Bob Auth, who is a STAUNCH 2A supporter, is that this is a trojan horse maneuver and that after the jackasses pass it they’re immediately sued to extend the protections to all citizens instead of just current politicians.
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A5958 and Why Context Matters
By Joe LoPorto
Recently, Gun Owners of America issued an email action alert to their members across New Jersey regarding Assembly Bill 5958, which would create exemptions for elected officials and their chiefs of staff when acting in their official capacity to the draconian and unconstitutional state restrictions on carrying firearms in public for self-defense. GOA criticized the bill as being “rules for thee, and not for me”. It urged members to contact the bill sponsors, including Assemblyman Bob Auth, to ask for an amendment to the bill to extend those same exemptions to all peaceable gun owners.
Gun Owners of America is a large and fast-growing national Second Amendment organization and has become increasingly influential in Washington, D.C., recently lobbying extensively on President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which included several significant changes to federal gun control.
Their role in New Jersey state politics, however, has been limited. There were no action alerts sent to members when 10 Democrat-sponsored gun bills passed the full Assembly in March. Nor when 7 of those bills moved to the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee in June, just before the summer recess. GOA has not historically issued ratings or endorsements of N.J. state legislative candidates, nor have they lobbied or appeared in Trenton on legislation in the past.
Why GOA chose to issue an action alert on A5958 is perplexing. Firstly, this bill has been taken completely out of context. Asm. Auth introduced this as a posturing bill, a way to make a clear statement on the dangerous environment that the left has created. There have been several recent, high-profile, national cases of lawmakers and public figures being targeted and assassinated, and even recently here in New Jersey. And of course, last year, President Trump himself survived an assassination attempt by mere millimeters.
As an obvious posturing bill, this was an attempt by Asm. Auth to call out these policies and highlight the importance of the right to self-defense. With a near Democratic super-majority in the Assembly and Senate, the odds of any GOP-sponsored legislation on a partisan topic even making it to a committee for debate and mark-up are near zero, and absolutely zero for one that expands on the right to public carrying of firearms.
Moreover, if by some small remote chance, lawmakers on the other side of the aisle suddenly realized that they are indeed their own first responders, passing something like A5958 would potentially open up the possibility of litigation on 14th Amendment equal protection grounds, another potential pathway to challenging the broad restrictions on the right to self-defense outside of the home for all of the residents of the state. That could never be accomplished outright through legislative action, given the current composition in Trenton.
With A+ ratings and endorsements from both our organization and the National Rifle Association, and a long and consistent history of openly defending gun rights on the floor in Trenton, Asm. Auth is one of the staunchest allies for gun owners in the statehouse.
I have lobbied in opposition to elements of state gun control that increase the fees and burdens to obtain licenses and permits on the basis that such policies discriminate against the poor and hide core constitutional rights behind paywalls. In 2022, during the debate on A4769, the state’s response bill to the Supreme Court’s landmark NYSRPA v. Bruen decision, in coordination with our testimony, Asm. Auth openly defended the rights of the residents of Paterson, Newark, Elizabeth, and Camden to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
My organization recently partnered with several national gun rights groups to promote a municipal resolution to drastically reduce the cost of carry permits so that all people can access those rights, and Asm. Auth has been instrumental in getting those resolutions passed across his district. And just before the summer recess, Asm. Auth signed on as a prime sponsor to a bill that we strongly support that would require the Attorney General’s Office to report on denials for all firearms license types based on race, ethnicity, and gender.
A5964 is a state companion bill to Rep. Thomas Massie’s H.R. 2267, the NICS Data Reporting Act, which passed out of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in March on a unanimous bipartisan basis. So unlike A5958, there is at least a small chance that lawmakers in Trenton will at least want to know whether the subjective licensing standards in our laws have a discriminatory impact.
Asm. Auth’s record on the Second Amendment is one of both words and action, and he is clearly committed to protecting and expanding the rights of all the people. To be clear, if A5958 were to advance to a committee for debate, we would oppose it in its current form and advocate for that bill to be amended to broaden its protections to all peaceable people in the state. But that was never going to happen here, as this bill is obviously about creating a public conversation around expanding gun rights in response to a tragedy instead of the normal knee-jerk reaction we typically see.
Why GOA chose to issue an action alert on a posturing bill, in the middle of the summer recess, with a lame-duck session ahead for the fall is unclear. Especially in light of the bill package that passed a Senate Committee in June and is one full Senate vote away from reaching the governor’s desk, and has a very good possibility of doing so this fall. Hundreds of other posturing bills sitting in the queue on the other side of the aisle would, if passed, fully gut the Second Amendment. But our member time and resources are limited and valuable, and action alerts should be focused on legislation that is realistically moving towards enactment, that truly threatens our rights.
It has often been repeated that politics is the art of the possible. A5958 was never possible in its current form or with broader amendments. So, we must consider the context of such maneuvers.