Civilian Concealed Carry Law Overview Update and Law Enforcement Interactions

As many of you know, the recent Bruen case in the state of New York changed the look of concealed carry for civilians for many states such as New York, New Jersey and other states who do their best to prevent law abiding citizens from obtaining their rightful carry permits and to actually "carry" their firearms for their own self defense/defense of others from violent criminals.  Yes, there are actual violent criminals in our state and many other states that have no borders, and the majority of the guns used in their crimes are actual "ILLEGAL FIREARMS." 

But states like New Jersey do not want to admit that and focus on the areas of citizens should NOT be allowed to carry firearms to protect themselves or others close to them from violent crimes from actual violent offenders. The word on the political streets is "we cannot afford to have more potential crimes such as mass shootings by and allowing more citizens to carry these firearms will drastically increase these events."

Really?  Well, we can honestly say for the past 20 years of educating police, school representatives, business owners and individual legal gun owners that the mass of the violent crimes actually comes from street guns, illegal guns and simply bad people. Unfortunately looking at mass shootings, a larger percentage of guns used in these horrible crimes were handguns and these events primarily occurred in "gun free zones." But they choose to go after the law abiding citizen who can actually help prevent these events from happening and instead condemn anyone who simply chooses to want to carry a firearm for self protection and protection of others where "justified force is the last resort." 

I am all for strong education of gun handling, gun carry and "standards" which is why we developed such an intense program for civilians that covers Use of Force, Basic Firearms Safety and 6 hours of detailed firearms training to include use of force decision making, and the mandatory qualification course which we truly challenge the civilian and not just pulling triggers.  In the end, they truly learn how critical having a firearm programs that protects the health and safety of the gun owner, their families, others in society and of course Law Enforcement. 

Which leads me to the final segment of this blog. If you are Law Enforcement, just make sure to be mindful of the current NJ Assembly Bill 4769 which truly provides a copy and past version of the NY law which did face scrutiny by a federal court judge calling the measure "unconstitutional" even though the law is moving forward. This means there are current legal challenges currently in the works, and this is currently about to happen here in New Jersey.  Be mindful of the cross contamination of information that will be presented by people who are working off the Assembly Bill 4769 and will interpret it in their own ways. The result will be many police agencies trying to follow common practices, possible arrests that may be done in error, LEOSA rights versus the civilian rights and law enforcement from assorted agencies using assorted levels of discretion when first dealing with this political hot potato. This will be challenged so we hope that your Attorney General will then put the official announcement out as to what the rule of New Jersey law will be. We have been teaching advising civilians of the best practices such as providing proof of the permit with the other required credentials during the police encounter. 

This bill will probably slow down the many who worked so hard to get their permits only to see the state put major restrictions on where and how one can carry.  But make sure you, the law enforcement officer, stays up to date of what is going on with the laws for concealed carry and know its going to continue to move in different directions.

For our civilians, do the same in keeping yourself informed and educated on what is going on with this current bill.  Keep training and keep learning.

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