New Jersey Asks SCOTUS For Do-Over

New Jersey has formally asked the U.S. Supreme Court to park its own losing case and give the state another shot at defending bans the Third Circuit already struck down.

The October 1 petition, filed by Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, asks the justices to hold New Jersey's case until they decide Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, the consolidated AR-15 cases set for argument December 2. If the Court rules in a way New Jersey thinks helps its position, the state wants its case sent back to the lower courts for another round.

State of play: New Jersey lost on both fronts. The July 17 en banc Third Circuit ruling — 10 of 15 judges joining — held the state's semiautomatic rifle ban and its ban on magazines over ten rounds unconstitutional. The court rejected New Jersey's attempt to carve ordinary semiautomatic rifles out of Second Amendment protection and tossed the state's ten-round cutoff as a political line with no constitutional basis.

The bans are still in effect. The Third Circuit stayed its own mandate on August 4, so New Jersey residents remain subject to prohibitions a federal appeals court already ruled illegal while this plays out in Washington. The July judgment hasn't been vacated, and the Supreme Court hasn't granted anything yet or added magazine questions to what it's deciding in Viramontes and Grant.

The intrigue: Viramontes and Grant technically only concern rifle bans in Illinois and Connecticut. New Jersey's petition argues the ruling will matter for magazines anyway, because rifle and magazine cases raise "overlapping methodological questions" — what counts as a protected arm, how courts measure common use, and whether old laws can justify banning modern equipment. The Associated New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs made the same connection in its own amicus brief, just aiming for the opposite outcome: a ruling broad enough to also settle magazine litigation in gun owners' favor.

Both sides agree the December argument could reach well past the two states actually named in the case. They just disagree on which way it cuts.

What to watch: A narrow Supreme Court ruling limited strictly to rifles could leave magazine bans in legal limbo for years, forcing fresh litigation in every circuit. California's magazine-ban challengers in Duncan v. Bonta have already pushed for direct review rather than wait through another cycle of remands and petitions — a preview of what gun owners elsewhere may face if the Court doesn't write a rule broad and clear enough to close off the label-based workarounds states keep trying.

The bottom line: New Jersey secured delay, not victory. Its gun owners stay under bans a federal appeals court found unconstitutional, waiting on a Supreme Court decision that may or may not settle the magazine question at all.