A Federal Court Threw Out New Jersey’s Rifle and Magazine Bans. The State Is Asking to Keep Enforcing Them Anyway

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

TRENTON, NJ — A federal appeals court threw out New Jersey’s bans on semiautomatic rifles and standard capacity magazines on July 17. Two weeks later, the state asked that same court for permission to keep enforcing both laws anyway. The request was filed July 31, 2026 by Solicitor General Jeremy M. Feigenbaum for Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, in Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, Inc., et al. v. Attorney General of New Jersey.

Here is how that is even possible. A ruling does not take effect the day it is announced. It takes effect when the court issues what is called the mandate, the paperwork that actually turns the decision loose. The full court entered its judgment on July 17. The mandate was set to issue on August 7, and that is the day the bans would have stopped being enforceable. New Jersey asked the court to hold the mandate back, and simply filing that request freezes the clock until the judges rule on it. The state’s appeal to the Supreme Court is not even due until October 15 at the earliest, and the pause it wants would last until the justices are finished with the case.

The state does not pretend it won. “The State is mindful that a majority of this en banc Court has already held that some of its statutes violate the Second Amendment,” the motion reads, before arguing that the court has paused its own rulings plenty of times before, including when it ruled against the party doing the asking. The filing lists fifteen such orders going back to 2010.

To get the pause, New Jersey has to convince the Third Circuit of three things (the standard comes from a case called Nara v. Frank): that the Supreme Court will probably take the case, that five justices might reasonably flip the ruling, and that the state gets permanently hurt in the meantime if the bans lapse.

On the first two, the state leans on where the Supreme Court already is. The justices have agreed to decide in Viramontes v. Cook County whether Americans have the right to own “AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles,” and they are holding petitions in NAGR v. Lamont, Duncan v. Bonta and Gator’s Custom Guns v. Washington until it is settled. New Jersey also points out that the Third Circuit is the outlier here, since the First, Second, Fourth, Seventh, Ninth and D.C. Circuits have all upheld bans like these. “That nearly thirty appellate judges across the ideological spectrum agree with the State’s arguments suggests at least a ‘reasonable possibility’ that five Justices would ultimately do the same,” the motion says.

The third piece is the harm claim. New Jersey says it is permanently injured the moment it cannot enforce its own laws, citing Supreme Court language that a blocked state “suffers a form of irreparable injury.” Then it argues the practical version: that rifles and magazines would pour into the state and be nearly impossible to claw back if the justices later side with New Jersey. “Law enforcement would not know who now possesses such weapons in New Jersey, and thousands of individuals may be subject to criminal exposure for continuing to possess weaponry they understood to be lawful when initially purchased,” the filing says.

The filing attaches exhibits to back that up. One names three New Jersey dealers, SC Arms, Urban Tactical Firearms and RTSP, selling standard capacity magazines within hours and days of the July 17 decision. Another collects ads from shops including Palmetto State Armory promising sales the moment the mandate issues. Thousands of those sales, the state warns, would be “a bell state and local law enforcement could not soon un-ring.”

Look at what the state is calling harm. The injury is that New Jersey residents will walk into licensed gun shops and buy rifles and magazines a federal appeals court just said they have a constitutional right to own. The “criminal exposure” the state warns those buyers face is a risk New Jersey created and New Jersey would enforce, now recycled as a reason to keep a struck-down law alive. Anyone who has worked through New Jersey’s gun laws will recognize the shape of that argument.

The fairness argument is sharper still. New Jersey passed these laws in May 1990. The plaintiffs did not sue until 2018 and 2022, and at one point they asked that their own case be put on hold while the Supreme Court decided NYSRPA v. Bruen, with the bans still in force the whole time. So, the state argues, the “36-year-old status quo” can hold a little longer. The delay by the people whose rights were restricted becomes the reason to keep restricting them for another year.

The Second Amendment Foundation, which has two related cases at the Supreme Court, described the July 17 decision as the full appeals court striking down key parts of New Jersey’s bans and splitting with other circuits on both the rifle and the magazine questions. SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut said the ruling confirms that the arguments in SAF’s Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins cases “are valid and well-reasoned.” NRA-ILA, which says the case is an NRA case, likewise announced that the court struck the state’s “assault firearm” and “large capacity magazine” bans.

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To be fair to the process, asking a court to hold its ruling while you appeal is routine, the Third Circuit grants those requests regularly, and the judges have not ruled on this one. The Supreme Court has not said whether it will hear New Jersey’s appeal, and it may just park the petition behind Viramontes. What is not in dispute is that six circuits went one way, the Third Circuit went the other, and the justices are going to settle it. In the meantime, nothing about how you carry in the state has changed, and the New Jersey carry rules still apply as written.

I will continue tracking this case as the Third Circuit rules on the request and the Supreme Court takes up Viramontes this fall.