A federal appeals court has struck down New Jersey's ban on semiautomatic 'assault firearms,' and its limit on magazines holding more than ten rounds, as unconstitutional [1]. The ruling, issued July 17 by the full Third Circuit sitting en banc, went 10 to 5 - and it is the first time a federal appeals court has struck down a state assault-weapons ban [1].
The timing is what makes it consequential. Only days earlier, the Seventh Circuit upheld a nearly identical ban in Illinois [1]. Two federal appeals courts reaching opposite conclusions on the same constitutional question is what lawyers call a circuit split, and it is the classic trigger for Supreme Court review - the Court often steps in precisely to settle such disagreements [1].
For now, the practical effect is in New Jersey. The state's assault-weapons and large-magazine bans are unenforceable while the case proceeds; New Jersey's attorney general, Jennifer Davenport, responded the same day and said she is weighing an appeal [1]. Davenport noted that every other federal appeals court to consider the question had come out the other way - a point the ruling's dissenters made as well, describing the Third Circuit as the only appeals court in the country to extend constitutional protection to these weapons [1].
The record here is not a verdict on whether such bans are wise; it is where the law now stands. After the Supreme Court's 2022 Bruen decision reset how courts judge gun laws, the lower courts have divided over what it means for assault-weapons bans - and this ruling forces that division into the open [1]. A question that about a dozen states have answered by statute is now, most likely, headed to the nine justices who would answer it for all of them [1].
