townhall.com86%
Third Circuit Spikes New Jersey Ban on 'Assault Firearms' and Large Capacity Magazines 32%
By Scott McClallen27%
7/17/2026, 8:00:52 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 14 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Quote-first Misdirection, and Biased Writer Voice, with Unattributed Quote as the most egregious example at 32.6% saturation with 139 hits. Analysis detected 807 faulty-reasoning hits from 426 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 41.2% and a BS Rank of 32% (14,420 of 21,176 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 68.10% of the article peer group.
The U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has struck down New Jersey’s ban on “assault firearms” and large-capacity magazines.
The court ruled that the bans violated the Second Amendment.
The Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs Inc., Blake Ellman, and Marc Weinburg had sued the New Jersey Attorney General, the Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, the Officer in Charge of the Chester Police Department, and the Chief of Police of the Park Ridge Police Department over the weapons ban.
The 192-page ruling released on July 17 consolidates three separate lawsuits under the Second Amendment.
The court remanded the question to the District Court.
The court wrote:
“It determined that New Jersey’s ban on Colt AR-15s violates the Second Amendment.
When it turned to the LCM Provisions, it held that the law does not violate the Second Amendment or the Takings Clause.
Applying the framework announced in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v.
Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), we agree with the District Court that New Jersey’s ban on Colt AR-15s violates the Second Amendment.
“However, because the record supports the same result for all semi-automatic rifles—not only Colt AR-15s—we will MODIFY the District Court’s order so that it deems the Assault Firearm Provisions unconstitutional with respect to the full class of semi-automatic rifles.
We will AFFIRM that part of the order as modified.
The LCM Provisions also violate the Second Amendment, so we will REVERSE the District Court’s order with respect to those.”
The National Rifle Association's state affiliate, the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, was the lead plaintiff when the case was initially filed and later amended to include assault weapons.
The NRA funded the lawsuit, and its counsel gave oral arguments before the Third Circuit.
John Commerford, Executive Director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, welcomed the win.
“Today marks a historic victory for the NRA, the Second Amendment, and law-abiding Americans," Commerford said in a statement.
"The Third Circuit has struck down these unconstitutional so-called assault weapons bans and magazine bans in New Jersey, affirming what we’ve always known: the right to keep and bear arms, including commonly-owned rifles and standard-capacity magazines, is fundamental and cannot be infringed by politicians who prioritize control over constitutional freedoms.
This ruling protects the rights of millions of responsible gun owners in the Garden State and serves as another benchmark in our efforts to dismantle gun control across the country.”
Speakers
1speaker27%attributed speech311writer words
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Selected voice
86%flagged-word coverageJohn Commerford
115 attributed words100% of attributed speech55% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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