Court strikes down New Jersey's ban on AR-15 rifles and 'high-capacity' magazines

New Jersey has been trying to ban the AR-15 for years now, and a federal appeals court just told the state what plenty of us have been saying since Bruen: you don't get to outlaw a class of firearm that millions of Americans lawfully own just because it looks scary on the evening news. The AR-15 is the most common rifle in the country. Treating it like contraband was never going to survive serious constitutional scrutiny, and it didn't.

What's notable here is the magazine cap going down with it. Trenton's argument was always that ten rounds is somehow the magic number for self-defense, a figure pulled from nowhere in particular and defended mostly by vibes and press conferences. The court wasn't buying it, because there's no historical tradition of government telling law-abiding citizens exactly how many bullets they're allowed to carry for protection.

New Jersey officials will call this a public safety setback, and they'll say it with a straight face while ignoring that their own state has had this law on the books for years without it doing much to stop violent crime committed with illegally obtained firearms. Bans like this were never really about stopping criminals. They were about making it harder for ordinary people to own guns criminals ignore the rules on anyway.

This ruling won't end the fight. New Jersey will appeal, and somewhere a governor is already drafting a statement about "commonsense" gun laws. But the Constitution doesn't bend because a state legislature finds it inconvenient, and this decision is a reminder that courts still notice the difference.