New Jersey, Where Everything is Illegal

Despite SilencerCo’s marketing, the new suppressed .50 cal muzzleloader is not legal in New Jersey. Let’s face it, what is? New Jersey defines firearms in such a way that even BB guns are firearms under New Jersey law, and if you put a silencer on one, that’ll land you in prison my friends. I’m pretty sure this is also illegal in Massachusetts as well.

12 thoughts on “New Jersey, Where Everything is Illegal”

  1. New Jersey has been a strange place for as long as I can remember, which is well back into the early 1950s. As long as I can remember they banned hunting with rifles, for no good reason that I could see. They actually are slightly more liberal about that now, than they were sixty years ago.

    While the word “statist” wasn’t part of my father’s lexicon, I know that is what he found odd about NJ, well back into the 1920s — their attitude toward everything could best be described as “statist.”

    I have often wondered why that was so, historically. I’ve wondered if there was some connection to, that NJ supplied something like 13,000 militiamen to be federalized by George Washington, to go crush their fellow countrymen in western Pennsylvania, in 1794; which they reportedly did with gusto.

  2. Might want to change that link to a permanent link to that post for the future.

  3. They do note that it has to go to an FFL when they ship it. Because it’s a firearm per NJ law. The question I would then have, is it a silencer under NJ law? I’ve never bothered to look at what NJ defines as a silencer.

    Not that I would spend that kind of money on a toy that the PTB in NJ would deem to be a silenced firearm regardless of what the law says.

  4. I have the misfortune of living here. I applied for a pistol purchase in late June. (I already have an NJ FID card but need another permit to buy a pistol which expires 60 days after issue). So far nothing. The people who I put down as references haven’t received their standards surveys from the state yet either.

    And it will get dramatically worse after we elect a new Governor in 2 months. My hope is that they go so far that they get seriously thrashed in federal court.

  5. For those that might be unaware, a few years ago NYS used the Department of Conservation as a legislative run around.

    In making air guns explicitly legal for hunting, what they have actually done is administratively defined air guns with a muzzle velocity of greater than 600 FPS as firearms under hunting regulations, which can be applied even to non-hunters who might not even be aware of such regulations.

    So, under NYS law you can buy a BB gun over the counter or mail order, because it is not a firearm, but carry a loaded BB gun with a motor vehicle, or fire one in the wrong place, and go to jail (and lose constitutional rights) for a firearms violation.

  6. In Massachusetts (IANAL CYA) this would be legal if it is permanently attached much like suppressed air rifles are.

    That being said you would need at least an FID to legally posses primers, balls, and powder.

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