For the past six months, Bearing Arms contributor John Petrolino has been covering the quiet revolution taking place across New Jersey, where a dozen communities have taken action to refund all or portions of the $150 that municipalities collect from every concealed carry application. The effort kicked off in Englishtown Borough back in June, and while eleven other municipalities have followed suit the campaign has received virtually no attention in the mainstream media… at least until now.
As the Asbury Park Press reports, Toms River could become the 13th community (and largest to date) to return money back to gun owners trying to exercise their right to bear arms at its council meeting on Wednesday night.
Council President Justin D. Lamb is championing a resolution that would make Toms River the 13th town statewide to reimburse residents for the $150 municipal portion of the permit fee required to carry a handgun in New Jersey.
State law requires that handgun permit holders pay $200 every two years to maintain their permit. Of that fee, $50 goes directly to the New Jersey State Police, while $150 goes to the municipality for processing and administrative costs.
… “For far too long, residents have been forced to pay what amounts to a tax on a core constitutional freedom,” Lamb said. “The (U.S.) Supreme Court has long held that government cannot tax fundamental rights, and this fee — well beyond a mere processing cost — does exactly that. Toms River is stepping up to lead by example and ease that burden on our residents, especially at a time when our so-called leaders have created a nanny state and allowed criminals to escape punishment.”
Kudos to Lamb for bringing this resolution forward as one of his last acts as the council’s president, and for his succinct explanation about why its so important to take this step. New Jersey state statute may require applicants to pay $200 to exercise their right to bear arms, but there’s nothing in state law that forbids localities from returning the $150 they receive from every application back to the applicants themselves.
If Toms River adopts Lamb’s resolution tonight, the refund measure would kick in on January 1. Unfortunately, it’s not retroactive for those who’ve already applied for a carry permit, but going forward applicants would be able to get that $150 refund by providing proof that they paid the application fee to the Toms River licensing authorities.
Reducing the cost to carry is the right thing to do from a constitutional perspective, but it’s also a poke in the eye to the anti-gun lawmakers in Trenton who adopted the $200 application fee in the hopes of pricing some residents out of exercising their right to bear arms. Just as importantly, it’s a grassroots campaign led by New Jersey gun owners and 2A activists who’ve been supported by organizations like NRA-ILA and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (where, in full disclosure, I serve as unpaid member of the Board of Directors).
With anti-gun Democrats dominating the state legislature, these activists and advocates are making inroads in their own local communities and proving that the Garden State isn’t monolithic in its hostility towards the Second Amendment; that there are, in fact, bastions of support for the right to keep and bear arms despite the best efforts of anti-gun politicians like Gov. Phil Murphy and Attorney General Matthew Platkin. Here’s hoping for a strong turnout and a unanimous vote in favor of Lamb’s proposal at the Toms River council meeting this evening, and that other municipalities will jump on this bandwagon as a result.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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