DM1\2510366.1 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY 

JEFFREY M. MULLER; DANIEL J. PISZCZATOSKI; 

JOHN M. DRAKE; GREGORY C. GALLAHER; 

LENNY S. SALERNO; FINLEY FENTON; 

SECOND AMENDMENT FOUNDATION, INC.; and 

ASSOCIATION OF NEW JERSEY RIFLE & PISTOL 

CLUBS, INC., 

 Plaintiffs, 

v. 

THE HON. PHILIP J. MAENZA, in his Official Capacity 

as Judge of the Superior Court of Morris County; THE 

HON. RUDOLPH A. FILKO, in his Official Capacity as 

Judge of the Superior Court of Passaic County; THE HON. 

EDWARD A. JEREJIAN, in his Official Capacity as Judge 

of the Superior Court of Bergen County; THE HON. 

THOMAS A. MANAHAN, in his Official Capacity as 

Judge of the Superior Court of Morris County; COL. RICK 

FUENTES, in his Official Capacity as Superintendent of the 

New Jersey State Police; CHIEF FRANK INGEMI, in his 

Official Capacity as Chief of the Hammonton, New Jersey 

Police Department; CHIEF RICHARD COOK, in his 

Official Capacity as Chief of the Montville, New Jersey 

Police Department; and PAULA T. DOW, in her Official 

Capacity as Attorney General of New Jersey, 

 Defendants. 

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No. 2:10-CV-6110 (WHW) (CCC) 

REPLY BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY

JUDGMENT AND IN OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS’ CROSS-MOTION TO DISMISS

David D. Jensen, Esq. 

Robert P. Firriolo, Esq. 

DUANE MORRIS LLP

Delaware Limited Liability Partnership 

744 Broad Street, Suite 1200 

Newark, NJ 07102-3889 

973.424.2000 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION & SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ......................................................... 1

ARGUMENT ............................................................................................................... 4

POINT I: SAF AND ANJRPC HAVE ORGANIZATIONAL STANDING ..................... 4

POINT II: HELLER HOLDS THAT THE SECOND AMENDMENT PROTECTS 

THE GENERAL RIGHT TO POSSESS AND CARRY A GUN – AND THE 

RULING IS NOT “LIMITED” TO THE HOME ................................................. 7

A. The Holdings of a Decision are the Parts Necessary to the 

Result Reached by the Court – Not Just the Boundaries of 

Relief Ordered ....................................................................................... 8

B. The Plaintiff in Heller Expressly Sought the Right to Possess 

and Carry a Handgun ............................................................................ 9

C. Heller Holds that the Right to “Bear Arms” is the Right to 

Carry Guns .......................................................................................... 12

D. The Heller Court Did Not Limit its Ruling to the Home .................... 15

E. The Dicta in Heller (and McDonald) Recognize a General 

Right to Carry Guns in Public ............................................................. 18

F. Caselaw Does Not Support the Claim that the Second 

Amendment Protects Only the Possession of Handguns within 

the Home ............................................................................................. 24

POINT III: THE “JUSTIFIABLE NEED” REQUIREMENT IS INHERENTLY 

DISCRETIONARY AND FAILS REVIEW AS A PRIOR RESTRAINT ................ 32

A. There is No Basis to Depart from Marzzarella’s Instruction to 

Utilize First Amendment Standards of Review .................................. 33

B. The Permit Laws Are Prior Restraints Because they Condition 

Constitutionally Protected Conduct on an Official Grant of 

Permission ........................................................................................... 35

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C. The Determination of “Justifiable Need” is Plainly and 

Inherently Discretionary ...................................................................... 39

POINT IV: “JUSTIFIABLE NEED” IS AN IMPERMISSIBLE BURDEN ...................... 42

A. The Supreme Court Explicitly Rejected the Attempt to “Balance 

Away” the Core Protections of the Second Amendment .................... 43

B. There is No Basis for Applying the Proposed “Reasonable 

Regulation Test” .................................................................................. 45

C. The “Justifiable Need” Requirement is an Impermissible 

Burden on the Exercise of Constitutional Rights ................................ 49

CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................... 53

 

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TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

FEDERAL CASES

Abdelfattah v. United States Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 488 F.3d 178 (3d Cir. 

2007) ..................................................................................................................... 9 

Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252 (1977) ....................... 4 

Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940) ........................................................ 32 

Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284 (1973) ....................................................... 16 

District of Columbia v. Heller, 552 U.S. 1035 (2007) ............................................ 12 

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) ...................................... Passim

Dorr v. Weber, no. C 08-4093, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 48950 (N.D. Iowa 

May 18, 2010) ............................................................................................... 26-28 

First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v. County of Los Angeles, 482 

U.S. 304 (1987) ................................................................................................... 16 

Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S. 123 (1992) ............................. 40 

Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972) ................................................................ 48 

FW/PBS, Inc. v. Dallas, 493 U.S. 215 (1990) ......................................................... 40 

Galli v. N.J. Meadowlands Comm’n, 490 F.3d 265 (3d Cir. 2007) ......................... 20 

Georgiacarry.org, Inc. v. Georgia, no. 5:10-CV-302, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 

6370 (S.D. Ga. Jan. 24, 2011) ............................................................................. 29 

Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339 (1960) ........................................................... 15 

Gonzalez v. West Milwaukee, no. 09CV0384, 2010 WL 1904977 (E.D. Wis. 

May 11, 2010) ..................................................................................................... 30 

Hunt v. Wash. State Apple Adver. Comm’n, 432 U.S. 333 (1977) ............................ 5 

Jaffee v. United States, 663 F.2d 1226 (3d Cir. 1981) ............................................... 9 

McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. ___, 130 S. Ct. 3020 (2010) .......................... 17-18 

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McDonald v. Master Fin., Inc., 205 F.3d 606 (3d Cir. 2000) ......................... Passim

Nat’l Socialist Party of Am. v. Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977) ............................... 34-35 

Official Comm. of Unsecured Creditors of Cybergenics Corp. v. Chinery, 

330 F.3d 548 (3d Cir. 2003) ............................................................................... 19 

Pa. Psychiatric Soc’y v. Green Spring Health Servs., 280 F.3d 278 (3d Cir. 

2002) ..................................................................................................................... 5 

Parker v. District of Columbia, 311 F. Supp. 2d 103 (D.D.C. 2004) ................ 10-11 

Parker v. District of Columbia, 478 F.3d 370 (D.C. Cir. 2007) .............................. 11 

Peruta v. County of San Diego, 678 F. Supp. 2d 1046 (S.D. Cal. 2010) .... 25-26, 36 

Riel v. City of Bradford, 485 F.3d 736 (3d Cir. 2007) ............................................. 40 

Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275 (1897) ............................................................ 28 

Scott v. Sanford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857) ...................................................... 28 

Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44 (1996) .............................................. 8 

Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147 (1969) ................................................ 42 

Staub v. Baxley, 355 U.S. 313 (1958) ...................................................................... 36 

Summers v. Earth Island Inst., 129 S. Ct. 1142 (2009) ............................................. 6 

Teng v. Kensington, no. 09-cv-8, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13785 (D.N.H. 

Feb. 17, 2010) ............................................................................................... 28-29 

Thomas v. Chi. Park Dist., 534 U.S. 316 (2002) ..................................................... 40 

United States v. Bloom, 149 F.3d 649 (7th Cir. 1998) ....................................... 13-14 

United States v. Chester, no. 09-4084, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 26508 (4th 

Cir. Dec. 30, 2010) ........................................................................................ 33, 50 

United States v. Hart, 726 F. Supp. 2d 56 (D. Mass. 2010) .................................... 30 

United States v. Marzzarella, 614 F.3d 85 (3d Cir. 2010)............................... Passim

United States v. Playboy Entm’t Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803 (2000) ........................ 51 

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United States v. Serafini, 167 F.3d 812 (3d Cir. 1999) ........................................... 14 

United States v. Skoien, 614 F.3d 638 (7th Cir. 2010) ............................................ 33 

United States v. Tooley, 717 F. Supp. 2d 580 (S.D.W. Va. Jul. 16, 2010) .............. 30 

Yee v. Escondido, 503 U.S. 519 (1992) ............................................................. 10, 16 

STATE CASES

Aymette v. State, 21 Tenn. 154 (1840) ..................................................................... 22 

In re Bastiani, 23 Misc. 3d 235 (N.Y. County Ct. 2008) ........................................ 31 

Digiacinto v. Rector & Visitors of George Mason Univ., no. 091934, 2011 

Va. LEXIS 29 (Va. Jan. 13, 2011) ...................................................................... 29 

In re Dubov, 981 A.2d 87 (App. Div. 2009) ............................................................ 31 

In re Echevarria, 2010 WL 0428108 (N.J. App. Div. Aug. 20, 2010) ................... 31 

In re Factor, no. A-5202-08T4, 2010 N.J. Super Unpub. LEXIS 865 (N.J. 

App. Div. Apr. 21, 2010). ................................................................................... 30 

In re Novello, 2010 WL 2795030 (N.J. App. Div. Jul. 15, 2010) ........................... 31 

In re Preis, 118 N.J. 564 (1990) ................................................................................ 1 

Fife v. State, 31 Ark. 455 (1876) ............................................................................. 29 

Hill v. Georgia, 53 Ga. 472 (1874) .......................................................................... 29 

Kellogg v. City of Gary, 562 N.E.2d 685 (Ind. 1990) .............................................. 37 

Mack v. United States, 6 A.3d 1224......................................................................... 32 

Mosby v. Devine, 851 A.2d 1031 (R.I. 2004) ......................................... 38-39, 45-47 

People v. Dawson, 934 N.E.2d 598 (Ill. Ct. App. 2010) ................................... 31-32 

Schubert v. De Bard, 398 N.E.2d 1339 (Ind. 1980) .......................................... 37-38 

Skokie v. Nat’l Socialist Party, 373 N.E.2d 21 (Ill. 1978) ....................................... 35 

State v. Knight, 218 P.2d 1177 (Kan. Ct. App. 2009) ............................................. 29 

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State v. Workman, 35 14 S.E. 9 (W. Va. 1891) ....................................................... 29 

Williams v. State, no. 16, 2011 Md. LEXIS 1 (Md. Jan. 5, 2011) ..................... 31-32 

Woollard v. Sheridan, no. 10-2068, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 137031 (D. Md. 

Dec. 29, 2010) ....................................................................................................... 4 

FEDERAL STATUTES

18 U.S.C. § 922 ........................................................................................................ 24 

STATE STATUTES

D.C. Code § 22-4504 ............................................................................................... 10 

Del. Code Ann. tit. 11 § 1441 .................................................................................. 22 

Del. Code Ann. tit. 11 § 1442 .................................................................................. 22 

Kansas Stat. Ann.§ 75-7c03 ..................................................................................... 29 

N.J.S.A. § 2C:39-5 ..................................................................................................... 1 

N.J.S.A. § 2C:39-6 ............................................................................................... 1, 52 

N.J.S.A. § 2C:58-4 ..................................................................................................... 1 

18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 6106 ................................................................................ 22 

18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 6109 ................................................................................ 22 

R.I. Gen. Laws § 11-47-11 ....................................................................................... 38 

R.I. Gen. Laws § 11-47-18 ....................................................................................... 38 

REGULATIONS

N.J.A.C. § 13:54-2.4 .......................................................................................... 41, 52 

N.J.A.C. § 13:54-2.7 .................................................................................................. 1 

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS

U.S. Const. Amend. I ....................................................................................... Passim

U.S. Const. Amend. II ...................................................................................... Passim

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PERIODICALS

Adam Winkler, Scrutinizing the Second Amendment, 105 Mich. L. Rev. 683 

(2007) .................................................................................................................. 45 

David B. Kopel, The Licensing of Concealed Handguns for Lawful 

Protection: Support from Five State Supreme Courts, 68 Alb. L. Rev. 

305 (2005) ........................................................................................................... 21 

Eugene Volokh, Implementing the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for SelfDefense: An Analytical Framework and a Research Agenda, 56 UCLA L. 

Rev. 1443 (2009) ................................................................................................ 21 

NON-PERIODICAL PUBLICATIONS

J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law (O. Holmes ed., 12th ed. 1873) ............ 22 

OTHER AUTHORITIES

Petioner’s Brief, District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) (No. 

07-290), 2008 U.S. S. Ct. Briefs LEXIS 7 ......................................................... 12 

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INTRODUCTION & SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

This is a straightforward case: The Supreme Court has held that the Second 

Amendment “guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons 

[including, specifically, handguns] in case of confrontation.” District of Columbia 

v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 592 (2008) (emphasis added). New Jersey law, however, 

criminalizes the unlicensed “possession” of handguns. N.J.S.A. §§ 2C:39-5(b); 

2C:44-1(f)(1)(c). A private citizen must hold a Permit in order to carry a handgun 

in public for self-defense. N.J.S.A. §§ 2C:39-5(b), -6(e). 

This suit challenges only one aspect of New Jersey’s gun laws – the ability 

of State officials to withhold Permits based on their opinion that individual 

applicants do not have a sufficient “need” for self-defense. N.J.S.A. § 2C:58-

4(c),(d); N.J.A.C. § 13:54-2.7(a). This lawsuit does not challenge the authority of 

the State to criminalize the unlicensed possession or carry of handguns, nor does 

this lawsuit challenge the training, background, and qualification requirements 

otherwise needed to qualify for a Permit. As such, the State Defendants’ appeal to 

the need to preserve New Jersey’s “careful grid of regulatory provisions” is 

misplaced. State Br. at 2 (quoting In re Preis, 118 N.J. 564, 568 (1990)). 

Since McDonald, no federal court has yet addressed the constitutionality of a 

law, such as New Jersey’s, that bans the general act of “carrying” a handgun in 

public, or subjects this act to a license that state officials have discretion to 

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withhold. The only federal court decisions to date have concerned – and generally 

upheld – delimited restrictions on the manner or place that guns are carried. 

There is general agreement that the first analytic step requires this Court to 

determine whether the Permit laws burden conduct that the Second Amendment 

protects. See United States v. Marzzarella, 614 F.3d 85, 89 (3d Cir. 2010); see 

also Plaintiffs Br.1

 at 22; State Br.2 at 12. The State Defendants’ claim that the 

New Jersey laws do not implicate the Second Amendment can only be true if the 

Second Amendment reaches no further than one’s home, business, and property. 

The State Defendants thus incorrectly attempt to characterize the Second 

Amendment as “the right to possess a handgun in one’s home for purposes of selfdefense.” See State Br. at 1, 11, 16, 19, 20. However, they also concede that 

Heller “was leaving the affirmative scope of the Second Amendment to another 

day.” Id. at 15-16. This concession is fatal. 

Point II shows that the Supreme Court necessarily ruled that the Second 

Amendment protects a general right to “carry” guns that is not limited to the home. 

The Court’s conclusion that the right to “bear Arms” is the right to “carry guns” 

was necessary to its resolution of Heller, which had hung on the meaning of “bear” 

since its resolution at the District Court level, and this conclusions is part of the 

 

1

 Brief in Support of Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. No. 13). 

2

 Brief on Behalf of State Defendants (Doc. No. 25). 

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Court’s holding. Contrary to the claim of State Defendants and Amici, the Court 

did not specify that its holding was limited to the facts presented. 

Also contrary to the State Defendants’ averment, the Heller Court did not

“suggest[ ] that the Second Amendment does not prohibit a complete prohibition 

against the carrying of handguns,” id. at 1, and the State Defendants cite no 

provision of the Heller decision that contains such a statement. The Court 

indicated only that delimited restrictions on the manner and place of carry are 

valid. The State Defendants’ claim that the Court used “prohibitions on carrying 

concealed firearms as an ‘example’ that demonstrates that the scope of the Second 

Amendment . . . does not encompass a right to carry a handgun beyond one’s 

home,” id. at 17, is pure sophistry. These examples were used to show that there is 

a basic individual right to carry guns, subject to a degree of permissible restriction. 

Once it is determined that a Permit to Carry is necessary to engage in 

constitutionally protected conduct – “to keep and bear Arms” – the resolution of 

this case is easy. Where permission is necessary to engage in constitutionally 

protected acts, the Supreme Court has long imposed a two-part procedural test that 

is designed to ensure that state and local officials do not have discretion to 

withhold that permission. While the State Defendants argue that no other court has 

(yet) applied prior restraint principles to a gun law since Heller, this misses the 

point. The State Defendants show no reason that prior restraint principles should 

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not apply – and certainly, they have been applied to analogous statutory schemes in 

the past. 

To whatever extent the Court finds it necessary to proceed further in 

analysis, Point IV explains that there is no basis for the proposed “reasonable 

regulation test” that would allow the State to balance away individuals citizens’ 

constitutional right to bear arms. The Supreme Court has rejected this interestbalancing approach, and further, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has 

directed this Court to apply First Amendment principles of review. Under a proper 

burden analysis, the “justifiable need” requirement cannot pass review because the 

lack of a Permit to Carry leaves no alternatives allowing carry in public. 

ARGUMENT

POINT I:

SAF AND ANJRPC HAVE ORGANIZATIONAL STANDING

The State Defendants challenge the standing of Plaintiffs SAF and ANJRPC, 

claiming that “no individual plaintiff” is alleged to be a member of SAF or 

ANJRPC, and that SAF and ANJRPC do not identify specific members who were 

denied permits. See State Br. at 10-11. 

The Court need not reach this issue because there is no dispute that the 

remaining Plaintiffs have standing. See Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. 

Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 264 (1977); see also Woollard v. Sheridan, no. 10-2068, 2010 

U.S. Dist. LEXIS 137031, *2-3 n.1 (D. Md. Dec. 29, 2010). 

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In any event, SAF and ANJRPC have standing because: (1) their members 

otherwise have standing to sue; (2) the interests they seek to protect – Second 

Amendment rights – are germane to their purpose; and (3) the claim for declaratory 

and injunctive relief that the “justifiable need” requirement is facially invalid does 

not require the participation of individual members in the lawsuit. See Hunt v. 

Wash. State Apple Adver. Comm’n, 432 U.S. 333, 343 (1977); see also Pa. 

Psychiatric Soc’y v. Green Spring Health Servs., 280 F.3d 278, 286 (3d Cir. 2002). 

There is no doubt that the organizational purposes of Plaintiffs SAF and 

ANJRPC are germane to this suit. Plaintiff SAF is a nationwide Second 

Amendment advocacy group that sponsored and was a party to the McDonald

litigation. SAF continues to sponsor carefully selected lawsuits that vindicate the 

constitutional rights of law-abiding gun owners throughout the United States. See

Ex. 1, Supp. Dec. of Miko Tempski ¶¶ 2-5. Plaintiff ANJRPC is the largest statelevel organization that advocates for the rights of law-abiding gun owners in the 

State of New Jersey. ANJRPC also sponsors litigation that seeks to vindicate the 

rights of law-abiding gun owners. See Ex. 2, Supp. Dec. of Scott Bach ¶¶ 2-3. 

Neither SAF nor ANJRPC could exist without thousands and thousands of 

members and supporters – both nationwide and in New Jersey – who contribute 

their time, money, and energy to support the organizations’ goals. 

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There is no difficulty responding to the State Defendants’ demand that 

Plaintiffs identify specific individuals who have standing. See Summers v. Earth 

Island Inst., 129 S. Ct. 1142, 1149 (2009) (looking to affidavits). Going no further 

than the parties to this case, at least two of the named Plaintiffs – John Drake and 

Daniel Piszczatoski – are members of both SAF and ANJRPC. See Ex. 3, Supp. 

Dec. of John Drake ¶¶ 1-3; Ex. 4, Supp. Dec. of Daniel Piszczatoski ¶¶ 1-3. 

The membership of SAF and ANJRPC also includes individuals who are 

unable to represent their own interests, but who rely on SAF and ANJRPC to assert 

claims for them. These include people like Michael Fleischer, MD, a practicing 

ophthalmic physician and surgeon in Fort Lee. See Ex. 5, Dec. of Michael 

Fleischer, MD ¶¶ 1-3. Dr. Fleischer has completed all of the statutory 

requirements for a Permit to Carry – training in the use of firearms, training in use 

of force laws, and successful passage of the State Police shooting test – but he has 

not applied for a Permit because he fears that medical boards may view the (nearly 

certain) denial of his application negatively. See Ex. 5 ¶¶ 5-6. 

The membership of SAF and ANJRPC also includes people like Scott 

Rivera, who works for the Town of Hammonton, New Jersey as an Assistant 

Superintendent. See Ex. 6, Dec. of Scott Rivera ¶¶ 1-3. Mr. Rivera applied for, 

and was denied, a Permit to Carry. See Ex. 6 ¶¶ 5-9. Mr. Rivera is concerned that 

seeking judicial review of his denied application for a Permit to Carry will be 

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costly and may cause unwanted attention, and hence, he relies on SAF and 

ANJRPC to seek relief for him. Ex. 6 ¶¶ 10-11. 

POINT II:

HELLER HOLDS THAT THE SECOND AMENDMENT PROTECTS

THE GENERAL RIGHT TO POSSESS AND CARRY A GUN – 

AND THE RULING IS NOT “LIMITED” TO THE HOME

The Supreme Court necessarily ruled that the Second Amendment protects 

the discrete acts of “keeping” (possessing) and “bearing” (carrying) guns – as 

Plaintiffs demonstrated in their moving papers at pages 12-15. As such, the Court 

has held that the Second Amendment protects a general right to carry guns. 

The State Defendants respond by arguing that the Court has not 

“recognized” a general right to carry guns, and also, that the Second Amendment’s 

protections are confined to the home. The State Defendants argue that “if . . . the 

Court understood that it was recognizing a right to carry a handgun beyond one’s 

home, it could have and would have said so. It did not.” State Br. at 13-14. With 

added invective, Brady Amici present the same argument. See Brady Br.3

 at 7. 

Incredibly, the State Defendants, and Brady Amici, hang these contentions 

on one – one – paragraph of the Heller decision. See State Br. at 13; Brady Br. at 

6-7. In this paragraph, the Court summarized the relief it was ordering for plaintiff 

Heller: 

 

3

 Proposed Amici Curiae Brief by Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Ceasefire NJ, and 

New Jersey Million Mom March Chapters of the Brady Campaign (Doc. No. 26). 

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In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession 

in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its 

prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home 

operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense. Assuming 

that Heller is not disqualified from the exercise of Second 

Amendment rights, the District must permit him to register his 

handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home. 

Heller, 554 U.S. at 635 (emphasis added). 

The State Defendants, and Brady Amici, cite no other portion of the 64-page 

Heller decision to support their contention that the Court “limited” its holding – or 

even its analysis of the scope of the right protected – to the home. See State Br. at 

13, 20; Brady Br. at 1, 6-7. 

A. The Holdings of a Decision are the Parts Necessary to the Result 

Reached by the Court – Not Just the Boundaries of Relief Ordered 

Neither the State Defendants nor Brady Amici discuss principles of stare 

decisis – apparently taking it as a foregone conclusion that if the Court did not 

order relief outside the home, then ipso facto, this delimits the boundaries of the 

Second Amendment’s protections. This foregone conclusion is mistaken. 

The holdings of Supreme Court decisions are not confined to the questions 

presented for review, nor are they confined to the relief actually ordered by the 

Court. “When an opinion issues for the Court, it is not only the result but also 

those portions of the opinion necessary to that result by which we are bound.” 

Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 67 (1996) (emphasis added). The 

Third Circuit has explained that: 

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A holding . . . extends beyond a statement of who won or lost a 

case. A court can choose among different holdings that offer 

broader or narrower ways of resolving a dispute. 

McDonald v. Master Fin., Inc., 205 F.3d 606, 612 (3d Cir. 2000). The Third 

Circuit has also counseled that “we cannot avoid our obligation to forecast or 

predict how the Court will decide troubling cases involving new factual 

situations.” Jaffee v. United States, 663 F.2d 1226, 1228 (3d Cir. 1981). 

Dicta, in contrast to a holding, is “a statement in a judicial opinion that could 

have been deleted without seriously impairing the analytical foundations of the 

holding – that, being peripheral, may not have received the full and careful 

consideration of the court that uttered it.” Abdelfattah v. United States Dep’t of 

Homeland Sec., 488 F.3d 178, 185 (3d Cir. 2007) (quoting McDonald, 205 F.3d at 

612 (internal quotations omitted)). 

A close review of the controversy resolved by the Court in Heller shows that 

the Court necessarily ruled – held – that the Second Amendment protects an 

enumerated right to carry guns. This right does not hang on whether one is located 

in his or her home. 

B. The Plaintiff in Heller Expressly Sought the Right to Possess and 

Carry a Handgun 

Heller concerned provisions of the D.C. Code that prohibited: (1) the 

possession of unregistered guns; (2) the registration of handguns, (3) the carry of a 

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handgun in the home without a license; and (4) the keeping of operable firearms in 

the home. See Heller, 554 U.S. at 575-76. 

Significantly, the plaintiff in Heller chose to present a narrowly framed 

claim for relief: He sought the right to possess a handgun, and to carry it, but only 

within his home. See id. A party is generally entitled to “frame the question as 

broadly or as narrowly as he sees fit.” Yee v. Escondido, 503 U.S. 519, 535 (1992). 

The party’s framing determines the issues that the Court must address, but the 

Court also resolves other questions “fairly included therein”: 

The framing of the question presented has significant 

consequences, however, because under this Court’s Rule 

14.1(a), only the questions set forth in the petition, or fairly 

included therein, will be considered by the Court. While the 

statement of any question presented will be deemed to comprise 

every subsidiary question fairly included therein, we ordinarily 

do not consider questions outside those presented in the petition 

for certiorari. 

Id. (quotation omitted) (emphasis added). 

Plaintiff Heller’s claim, while specifically confined to his home, raised the 

issues of both possession and carry. Aside from challenging the District’s de facto

handgun ban, Plaintiff Heller challenged, inter alia, D.C. Code § 22-4504, which 

prohibited “carry . . . either openly or concealed on or about one’s person [of] a 

pistol.” Parker v. District of Columbia, 311 F. Supp. 2d 103, 103-04 & n.3 

(D.D.C. 2004) (quoting D.C. Code § 4504(a) (2001)), rev’d 478 F.3d 400 (D.C. 

Cir. 2007), aff’d sub nom. Heller, 554 U.S. 570. This statute differentiated 

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between carry in a “person’s dwelling place, place of business, or on other land 

possessed,” and carry in public, punishing the first as a misdemeanor, and the 

second as a felony. See id.; see also Parker, 478 F.3d at 400 n.20. 

The District Court “reject[ed] the notion that there is an individual right to 

bear arms separate and apart from service in the Militia.” Parker, 311 F. Supp. 2d 

at 109 (emphasis added). The court considered only the meaning of the term 

“bear” (not “keep”) and concluded that the Second Amendment protects only a 

“Militia” right because it found that “bear” was a military term. See id.; see also

Parker, 478 F.3d at 374. 

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the 

“military sense” interpretation and reversed. Parker, 478 F.3d 370. The court 

instead concluded that “the Second Amendment protects an individual right to 

keep and bear arms.” Id. at 395. One judge dissented, finding that the protection 

of the Second Amendment “relates to the Militia of the States only.” Id. at 409 

(Henderson, J., dissenting). 

The Supreme Court granted certiorari to address this question: 

Whether the following provisions – D.C. Code §§ 7-

2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02 – violate the Second 

Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with 

any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and 

other firearms for private use in their homes? 

District of Columbia v. Heller, 552 U.S. 1035 (2007) (emphasis added). 

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C. Heller Holds that the Right to “Bear Arms” is the Right to Carry Guns 

The District of Columbia’s brief to the Supreme Court led with the argument 

that the Second Amendment only “protects [ ] the right to keep and bear arms as 

part of a well-regulated militia.” Pet. Br. at 11-12, District of Columbia v. Heller, 

554 U.S. 570 (2008) (No. 07-290), 2008 U.S. S. Ct. Briefs LEXIS 7. A core part 

of the District’s argument was its claim that the phrase “‘bear Arms’ refers 

idiomatically to using weapons in a military context.” See id. at 15-17. 

The Court devoted the first 25 pages of its opinion to analyzing the meaning 

of the words of the Second Amendment themselves. See Heller, 554 U.S. at 576-

600. The Court ultimately rejected the “military context” argument and found 

instead that the words of the Second Amendment “guarantee the individual right to 

possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.” Id. at 592 (emphasis added). 

The State Defendants and Brady Amici attempt to ignore that a key aspect of 

the Court’s ruling was its conclusion that the Second Amendment’s right to “bear

Arms” is not an idiomatic reference, but is instead a general right to carry firearms. 

But, as explained above, the meaning of “bear Arms” in the Second Amendment 

had been controlling at all levels of the litigation. 

And it was a controlling issue at the Supreme Court. Although the Court 

had little difficulty concluding that “keep” meant “have weapons,” id. at 582, it 

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devoted considerably more analysis to the meaning of the term “bear,” see id. at 

584-92. The Court set forth its conclusion at the beginning of its analysis: 

At the time of the founding, as now, to “bear” meant to “carry.” 

When used with “arms,” however, the term has a meaning that 

refers to carrying for a particular purpose – confrontation. In 

Muscarello v. United States, in the course of analyzing the 

meaning of “carries a firearm” in a federal criminal statute, 

Justice Ginsburg wrote that “[s]urely a most familiar meaning 

is, as the Constitution's Second Amendment . . . indicate[s]: 

‘wear, bear, or carry . . . upon the person or in the clothing or in 

a pocket, for the purpose . . . of being armed and ready for 

offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another 

person.’” We think that Justice Ginsburg accurately captured 

the natural meaning of “bear arms.” Although the phrase 

implies that the carrying of the weapon is for the purpose of 

“offensive or defensive action,” it in no way connotes 

participation in a structured military organization. 

Id. at 584 (quoting Muscarello v. United States, 524 U.S. 125, 143 (1998) 

(Ginsburg, J., dissenting)) (other quotations omitted; alterations in source). 

Plaintiffs showed in their moving papers (pp. 13-15) that the Court’s explicit 

rejection of Justice Stevens’ dissenting view – opposing the Court’s conclusion 

that the Second Amendment right to “bear Arms” is a personal right to carry guns 

– resolves any doubt or ambiguity on the point. In United States v. Bloom, 149 

F.3d 649 (7th Cir. 1998), the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit concluded 

that the Supreme Court had rejected a competing view set forth in a concurring

opinion because “[h]ad the majority agreed with Justice Stevens about the meaning 

of § 3731, it would have done as he urged: it would have ordered the appeal 

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dismissed without turning to the Constitution.” Id. at 653; accord United States v. 

Serafini, 167 F.3d 812, 815 n.7 (3d Cir. 1999). Had the majority agreed with 

Justice Stevens that “bear” does not mean “carry,” it would have done as Justice 

Stevens urged and found there was no personal right at issue. Minimally, the 

Court would have substantially altered its analysis at pages 584-592. 

The State Defendants offer no response to this plain fact – that the Court 

necessarily decided that “bear” means “carry in case of confrontation.” Brady 

Amici’s only response is confined to a footnote that substantively asserts that the 

Court’s discussion of the meaning of “bear Arms” in the Second Amendment did 

not actually address the meaning of “bear Arms” in the Second Amendment, and 

proposes that this Court interpret the term “bear Arms” differently. See Brady Br. 

at 7 n.4 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 584).4

This misplaced argument simply ignores both the Court’s explicit conclusion 

– that to “bear Arms” means to “carry weapons in case of confrontation,” Heller, 

554 U.S. at 592 – as well as stare decisis. The very fact that the Court needed to 

resolve the meaning of “bear Arms” to construe the meaning of “keep and bear 

Arms” shows that the meaning of “bear Arms” was necessarily decided by the 

 

4

 Brady Amici state that “the Heller Court discussed ‘bear’ as meaning ‘carry’ simply to support 

its position that the Second Amendment’s use of ‘bear arms’ ‘in no way connotes participation in 

a structured military organization,’ and, therefore, the Court opined, the phrase did not indicate 

that the Second Amendment was limited to militia matters.” Brady Br. at 7 n.4 (quoting Heller, 

554 U.S. at 584). 

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Court. The Heller Court was certainly not deciding the meaning of “bear Arms” in 

the context of interpreting some other provision of the Constitution. Cf. Gomillion 

v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339, 344 (1960) (stare decisis reaches “the particular 

prohibitions of the Constitution considered in [prior] cases”). 

The Court’s resolution of the meaning of “bear Arms” – as a personal right 

to carry guns in case of confrontation – could not be removed from Heller without 

seriously impairing the analytical foundations of the holding. As such, the Court’s 

conclusion is a holding – not dicta. See McDonald v. Master Fin., Inc., 205 F.3d 

606, 612 (3d Cir. 2000) (“dictum [is] a statement in a judicial opinion that could 

have been deleted without seriously impairing the analytical foundations of the 

holding – that, being peripheral, may not have received the full and careful 

consideration of the court that uttered it” (quotations omitted)). 

D. The Heller Court Did Not Limit its Ruling to the Home 

The State Defendants, and Brady Amici, claim that the Supreme Court 

“limited” its Heller decision to the home, but again, the only part of the Heller

decision that they cite is the Court’s summary of the relief it was ordering for the 

plaintiff. See State Br. at 13, 20; Brady Br. at 1, 6-7. What State Defendants (and 

Brady Amici) ignore is that the Court ordered all of the relief that the plaintiff in 

Heller had sought. It was not a situation in which the plaintiff had sought, and the 

Court had refused, relief outside the home. The Court had no power to grant relief 

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that went beyond the question presented. See generally Yee v. Escondido, 503 U.S. 

519, 535 (1992). 

Therefore, the claim that the Court “limited” its holding is misplaced. The 

Court did not make a statement explicitly confining its analysis to the facts before 

it – as it has done in the past. See, e.g., First English Evangelical Lutheran Church 

v. County of Los Angeles, 482 U.S. 304, 321 (1987) (“We limit our holding to the 

facts presented[.]”); Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 302-03 (1973) (“In 

reaching this judgment, we establish no new principles of constitutional law. . . . 

Rather, we hold quite simply that under the facts and circumstances of this case the 

rulings of the trial court deprived Chambers of a fair trial.”). 

And it was certainly not a case in which the Court lacked apprehension that 

a recognized right to “carry” guns would apply both inside and outside the home. 

Justice Stevens, in dissent, observed that “the need to defend oneself may suddenly 

arise in a host of locations outside the home” and that the ban on home possession 

“may well be just the first of an unknown number of dominoes to be knocked off 

the table.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 679-80 (Stevens, J., dissenting). While the Court 

responded to many of the potential ramifications that Justice Stevens raised, they 

pointedly did not disclaim this suggestion. 

The Heller Court’s discussion of the significance of the home only 

reinforces the conclusion that the Second Amendment secures rights that apply far 

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more broadly than the home. Far from suggesting the right was confined to the 

home, the Court described the right as one that had its consummation in the home: 

The handgun ban . . . extends, moreover, to the home, where 

the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute. 

* * * 

[W]hatever else [the Second Amendment] leaves to future 

evaluation, it surely elevates above all other interests the right 

of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of 

hearth and home. 

* * * 

The Constitution leaves the District of Columbia a variety of 

tools for combating that problem, including some measures 

regulating handguns. But the enshrinement of constitutional 

rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. 

These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and 

used for self-defense in the home. 

Heller, 554 U.S. at 628, 635, 636 (quotations omitted) (emphasis added). These 

statements plainly recognize that the right to keep and bear arms is not confined to 

the home, and that the home is merely a place where the right is at its zenith. 

While “some measures regulating handguns” are permissible under the 

Constitution, the Court surely did not signal carte blanche for regulatory measures 

that operate outside the home. 

Nor is such limiting or qualifying language to be found in McDonald, which 

also addressed a claim confined to the home. See McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 

___, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 3026 (2010). The McDonald Court continued Heller’s 

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theme of referencing personal protection in the home as a “notable example” of 

protected conduct. See id. at 3044. 

The Court’s holding that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to 

possess and carry guns for self-defense admits of no “home”-based limitation on 

its face. Moreover, the Court did not disclaim the existence of rights outside the 

home. There is no merit to the contention that the Court’s holdings are not binding 

merely because a somewhat different factual context is now presented. 

E. The Dicta in Heller (and McDonald) Recognize a General Right to 

Carry Guns in Public 

The Court provided two examples of carry restrictions that either were, or 

might be, permissible. The significance is that the restrictions the Court outlined 

pertain to the place and manner of carry – not the basic ability to carry or bear 

guns. Thus, the Court’s opinion explicitly recognizes a constitutional right to 

“possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,” and the dicta then qualifies 

the sweep of that ruling with statements that laws precluding carry in certain 

places or manners are, or may be, valid. 

The clear import is that laws that simply preclude “carry” are not valid. 

1. “Presumptively Lawful” Restrictions

The State Defendants claim that “Plaintiffs read the Court’s reference to 

laws prohibiting the carrying of firearms in sensitive places to be exactly what the 

Court said it was not, an exhaustive list.” State Br. at 15. The State Defendants 

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place considerable weight on the three “presumptively lawful” gun restrictions the 

Heller Court identified: 

Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis 

today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in 

our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding 

prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the 

mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in 

sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or 

laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial 

sale of arms. 

Heller, 554 U.S. at 626-27. Certainly, the basic contours of these restriction reflect 

an understanding that permissible regulations will not simply preclude objectively 

qualified private citizens from possessing and carrying guns. The Court explained 

it supplied its “presumptively lawful” restrictions “as examples.” Id. 627 n.26. 

The State Defendants’ argument fails to recognize that the Court selected its 

dicta examples carefully – even including the examples as a point in its Syllabus. 

See id. at 572; see also Marzzarella, 614 F.3d at 93 (“prudence counsels caution 

when extending these recognized exceptions to novel regulations unmentioned by 

Heller”). The Third Circuit has explained that: 

we should not idly ignore considered statements the Supreme 

Court makes in dicta. The Supreme Court uses dicta to help 

control and influence the many issues it cannot decide because 

of its limited docket. 

McDonald v. Master Fin., Inc., 205 F.3d 606, 612 (3d Cir. 2000) (emphasis 

added); accord Official Comm. of Unsecured Creditors of Cybergenics Corp. v. 

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Chinery, 330 F.3d 548, 561 (3d Cir. 2003); see also Galli v. N.J. Meadowlands 

Comm’n, 490 F.3d 265, 274 (3d Cir. 2007). 

The State Defendants claim that “there is no indication that the Court 

coupled or associated, much less rationalized, that prohibition [on carry in sensitive 

places] as presupposing the existence of a general right to carry handguns.” State 

Br. at 15. But this argument does not make sense. 

As previously noted, the Court expressly ruled that the Second Amendment 

protects the right “to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.” Heller, 

554 U.S. at 592. If – as State Defendants and Brady Amici contend – the Court 

had intended to limit its broad holding to the home, then it would have been 

pointless for the Court to identify laws prohibiting guns from specified, sensitive 

public places as an “example” of a “presumptively lawful” restriction. The Court 

could have stated simply that “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in public” 

were “presumptively valid.” (For that matter, it could have said, “we limit our 

holding to the home.”) 

The State Defendants’ argument – that the carry-related example the Court 

provided do not recognize a general right to carry handguns in public – requires 

one to assume that the Court selected its example without thought. One must 

assume that after supposedly limiting its holding to the home, the Court then 

carelessly excepted laws prohibiting guns from “sensitive places such as schools 

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and government buildings” and “laws imposing conditions and qualifications on 

the commercial sale of arms” – activities that plainly take place in public. 

This case does not present the question of what place and manner

restrictions will ultimately be found to be permissible burdens on the right to keep 

and bear arms. New Jersey law bans the general act of “possessing” a handgun 

outside one’s home at all, and hence, the validity of place and manner restrictions 

is irrelevant. 

2. Historical Validity of Bans on Concealed Carry

A requirement that guns be carried either in the open, or concealed, relates to 

the manner in which guns are carried – not to whether people have the basic ability 

to carry guns at all. Thus, cases discussing bans or restrictions on concealed carry 

relate only obliquely to the New Jersey scheme that bans all carry. 

The essential background to this controversy is that the laws of a vast 

majority of states – including the other two States in the Third Circuit – allow 

people (not otherwise disabled) to carry firearms in the open, but either prohibit or 

(more commonly) license the concealed carry of firearms. See generally Eugene 

Volokh, Implementing the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for Self-Defense: An 

Analytical Framework and a Research Agenda, 56 UCLA L. Rev. 1443, (2009); 

David B. Kopel, The Licensing of Concealed Handguns for Lawful Protection: 

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Support from Five State Supreme Courts, 68 Alb. L. Rev. 305, 305 (2005); see also

Del. Code Ann. tit. 11 §§ 1441-42; 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. §§ 6106(a), 6109(e). 

The Heller decision referenced a historical debate over whether bans on 

concealed carry were permissible under state constitutional provisions protecting a 

right to “bear arms.” The Court first addressed the issue of concealed carry in the 

portion of its opinion that considered whether various nineteenth century 

authorities supported the conclusion that the Second Amendment protects a 

personal right to possess and carry guns. See Heller, 554 U.S. at 613-14, 618. The 

Court noted that Aymette v. State, 21 Tenn. 154 (1840), had upheld a ban on 

concealed carry, but the Court also observed that other Tennessee decisions had 

otherwise upheld a general right to carry guns. See Heller, 554 U.S. at 613-14. A 

few pages later, the Court quoted J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law, which 

explained that it was unclear whether bans on concealed carry were valid or not: 

As the Constitution of the United States, and the constitutions 

of several of the states, in terms more or less comprehensive, 

declare the right of the people to keep and bear arms, it has 

been a subject of grave discussion, in some of the state courts, 

whether a statute prohibiting persons, when not on a journey, or 

as travellers, from wearing or carrying concealed weapons, be 

constitutional. There has been a great difference of opinion on 

the question.

Heller, 554 U.S. at 618 (quoting 2 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law *340, 

n.2 (O. Holmes ed., 12th ed. 1873)) (second emphasis added). 

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The Court returned to the issue of concealed carry in the sentence before it 

articulated its “presumptively lawful” measures. See id. at 626. Contrary to the 

claims of the State Defendants and Brady Amici, the Heller Court did not state that 

bans on concealed carry were “presumptively lawful,” but only that “a majority of” 

nineteenth century courts had found that they passed muster: 

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment 

is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century 

cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the 

right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever 

in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. For 

example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the 

question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons 

were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. 

Id. at 626 (emphasis added). In its Syllabus, the Court reiterated that its “opinion 

should not be taken to cast doubt on” the articulated presumptively lawful 

regulations, but the Court stated only that “concealed weapons prohibitions have 

been upheld.” Id. at 572 (emphasis added). 

Thus, far from stating that concealed carry bans are presumptively lawful, 

the Court appears to have reserved the decision of this question for a later date.

This lawsuit takes no position on the concealed vs. open carry debate. The 

only thing that matters here is that the debate exists. That there is substantial 

disagreement over whether a constitutional right to “bear arms” allows states to 

ban the concealed carry of firearms in favor of their open carry shows only that the 

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right to “bear Arms” indisputably encompasses a basic right to carry guns – one 

that may be subjected to permissible regulations, but not precluded. 

F. Caselaw Does Not Support the Claim that the Second Amendment 

Protects Only the Possession of Handguns within the Home 

In arguing that the Second Amendment “does not encompass a right to carry 

a handgun beyond one’s home,” the State Defendants cite decisions that are 

inapposite and that do not support the claim that the Second Amendment’s right to 

“bear Arms” ends at the threshold of one’s home. 

None of the federal court decisions cited confines the Second Amendment to 

the home. See State Br. at 17-18. The only decision that the State Defendants cite 

that is a binding precedent for this Court is the Third Circuit’s decision in 

Marzarella, which again, concerned a federal law that prohibits the possession of 

any firearm that has an obliterated serial number. See Marzzarella, 614 F.3d at 87; 

see also 18 U.S.C. § 922(k). Even though Marzzarella concerned the issue of 

basic possession, rather than the issue of carry, the Third Circuit recognized that 

the Second Amendment protects an “individual right to possess and carry weapons 

in case of confrontation.” Marzzarella, 614 F.3d at 90 (2797) (emphasis added). 

By its terms, the obliterated-serial number law at issue did not categorically 

prohibit the possession of handguns – in the home, or anywhere else. See id. at 94. 

Thus, if the Marzzarella court had indeed concluded that the Second Amendment 

protects only the right to possess a handgun within the home – as the State 

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Defendants and Brady Amici claim – then it would have ruled simply that the law 

at issue did not implicate the Second Amendment because it did not categorically 

prohibit handguns from the home. But the court did not so rule. 

Instead, the Marzzarella court reasoned that while “Heller delineates some 

of the boundaries of the Second Amendment right to bear arms,” still, “Heller did 

not purport to fully define all the contours of the Second Amendment.” Id. at 92 

(emphasis added). These statements, and this approach, are totally inconsistent 

with the State Defendants’ contention that the Second Amendment is confined to 

the home. 

The State Defendants offer no real resistance to the California District 

Court’s two decisions in Peruta v. County of San Diego, which substantively ruled 

that the facial requirements of California’s concealed carry laws were not 

unconstitutional because private citizens could still carry handguns unconcealed. 

See Plaintiffs Br. at 17. (Tellingly, Brady Amici do not cite the decisions at all.) 

The State Defendants point to the court’s qualification that its summary judgment 

decision “d[id] not need to decide” the scope of the right to carry guns because the 

concealed handgun license process “would pass constitutional muster even if it 

burdens protected conduct.” Peruta v. County of San Diego, no. 09CV2371, 2010 

U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130878, *19 (S.D. Cal. Dec. 10, 2010); see State Br. at 16. 

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However, the State Defendants ignore that the court had previously denied 

the defendants’ motion to dismiss on the finding that “the Heller decision cannot 

stand for the broad proposition that all concealed weapon bans are presumptively 

constitutional.” Peruta v. County of San Diego, 678 F. Supp. 2d 1046, 1054 (S.D. 

Cal. 2010) (emphasis in source). Indeed, the court reiterated this point in its 

summary judgment decision. See Peruta, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130878 at *18. 

A key part of the District Court’s summary judgment decision rested on its 

conclusion that the right to bear arms historically allowed concealed carry to be 

banned where “alternative forms of carrying arms were available.” Id. It was in 

this context that the court concluded that “to the extent [the concealed weapon law] 

burden[s] conduct falling within the scope of the Second Amendment, if at all, the 

burden is mitigated by the provisions . . . that expressly permit loaded open carry

for immediate self-defense.” Id. at 19 (emphasis added). The court then found that 

the burdens imposed on concealed carry passed, or would pass, intermediate 

scrutiny review. See id. at *26-27. As such, the court’s qualification only goes so 

far – and the court certainly recognized a general right to carry guns in public. 

The State Defendants and Brady Amici cite Dorr v. Weber, no. C 08-4093, 

2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 48950 (N.D. Iowa May 18, 2010), to support their claim 

that the Second Amendment “does not encompass a right to carry a handgun 

beyond one’s home.” State Br. at 17. However, this case contains no such 

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pronouncement and is also readily distinguished on two grounds. First, the cited

decision actually discussed the Second Amendment in the limited context of 

qualified immunity. See Dorr, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 48950 at *22-31. Second, 

Dorr concerned the claim that there was “a right to carry a concealed weapon 

under the Second Amendment.” Id. at *24 (emphasis added). Thus, the decision 

addressed only whether a right to carry concealed handguns had been “clearly 

established” at the time the defendant sheriff denied the license application. See 

id. at *29-30 (quotations omitted) (emphasis added).5

 While the Dorr court 

concluded that qualified immunity should be granted because “a right to carry a 

concealed weapon under the Second Amendment has not been recognized to date,” 

id. at *26, the court most certainly did not declare that the Second Amendment 

only protects conduct that takes place inside the home. 

In fact, the Dorr court expressly recognized that “[t]he [Heller] Court 

declared unequivocally that the Second Amendment guarantees ‘the individual 

right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.’” Id. at *24-25 

(quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 592) (emphasis added). After the qualified immunity 

decision, the case proceeded to trial, where the court found for the Plaintiff on 

other grounds and ordered the sheriff to issue the license. See Dorr v. Weber, no. 

 

5

 The present lawsuit seeks relief from Defendants only in their official capacities and does not 

seek money damages. As such, qualified immunity is not in issue. 

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C 08-4093, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 67517, *27 (N.D. Iowa Jul. 7, 2010). Although 

the court never reached the Second Amendment issue, it was still careful to note 

that it took “no position” regarding whether the concealed handgun license law 

was constitutional. Id. at *28 n.13. Clearly, the court did not confine the Second 

Amendment to the home. 

This is also true of the Court’s statement upholding the validity of concealed 

carry bans in Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275 (1897), which is noted to have 

been well beyond any issue presented in that case and pure dicta. See id. at 281-

82. To the extent this Court is inclined to rely on tangential dicta – and while 

Plaintiffs are loathe to cite the decision – the Court in Scott v. Sanford, 60 U.S. (19 

How.) 393 (1857), recognized that a constitutional right enjoyed by all citizens is 

“the full liberty . . . to keep and carry arms wherever they [go].” Id. at 417. 

The State Defendants, and particularly Amici, rely on many cases that 

uphold delimited restrictions on the manner of carrying guns to support the claim 

that there is no “right to carry a handgun beyond one’s home.” These cases do not 

support this proposition. On the contrary, they indicate that a policy of preclusion

is impermissible. Teng v. Kensington, no. 09-cv-8, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13785 

(D.N.H. Feb. 17, 2010), concluded merely that a requirement that one submit 

additional background information in order to obtain a concealed handgun license 

was permissible, and the court noted that a person could still carry a gun openly 

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without any license. See id. at *16-17 n.11. The decisions in State v. Knight, 218 

P.2d 1177, 1190 (Kan. Ct. App. 2009),6

 and State v. Workman, 35 14 S.E. 9, 10 

(W. Va. 1891), both concerned the validity of bans on the carry of concealed

handguns – an issue that is not present here. The court in Fife v. State, 31 Ark. 455 

(1876), upheld a restriction on carrying “pocket” pistols, but noted that such a ban 

could not be extended to cover all revolvers. See id. at 460-61. 

Cases that support the restriction of guns from delimited and sensitive places

also do not support the proposition that states may permissibly ban all carry in 

public. Hill v. Georgia, 53 Ga. 472 (1874), upheld a conviction for carrying a gun 

into a court, but the court noted that a carry restriction could not validly “interfere 

with the ordinary bearing and using of arms.” Id. at 483. This rationale is entirely 

consistent with two court decisions (decided since Plaintiffs submitted their 

moving papers) that uphold restrictions on the right to carry guns in university 

buildings and churches. See Georgiacarry.org, Inc. v. Georgia, no. 5:10-CV-302, 

2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6370, *30-32 (S.D. Ga. Jan. 24, 2011); Digiacinto v. 

Rector & Visitors of George Mason Univ., no. 091934, 2011 Va. LEXIS 29, *11-

13 (Va. Jan. 13, 2011). 

 

6

 It must be observed that the State of Kansas issues licenses to carry concealed handguns on 

nondiscretionary terms. See Kansas Stat. Ann. § 75-7c03. The Knight decision concerned a 

person convicted of carrying without a license. 

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Amici’s citation to United States v. Tooley, 717 F. Supp. 2d 580 (S.D.W. 

Va. Jul. 16, 2010), is inapposite. See Brady Br. at 10. Tooley concerned the 

constitutionality of a provision of federal law that prohibits those convicted of 

domestic violence assault from possessing firearms. See Tooley, 717 F. Supp. 2d 

at 592-98. There is nothing about the decision that indicates an intent to confine 

the Second Amendment to the home. 

Brady Amici cite United States v. Hart, 726 F. Supp. 2d 56 (D. Mass. 2010), 

and Gonzalez v. West Milwaukee, no. 09CV0384, 2010 WL 1904977 (E.D. Wis. 

May 11, 2010), but these decisions most certainly do not disclaim the existence of 

a right to carry guns outside the home. The cases do, however, belie Brady 

Amici’s contention that the recognition of Second Amendment rights will prevent 

police officers from doing their jobs (p. 13). In both cases, the courts upheld 

police stops that were predicated on officers observing a person with a gun in 

public. See Hart, 726 F. Supp. 2d at 60; Gonzalez, 2010 WL 1904977 at *3. 

The State Defendants also cite the New Jersey Appellate Division’s decision 

in In re Factor, no. A-5202-08T4, 2010 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 865 (Apr. 21, 

2010). Factor framed the issue as being whether “the Second Amendment 

prohibits laws that restrict carrying concealed weapons.” Id. at *9 (emphasis 

added). It is unclear whether the applicant in Factor sought a license limited to the 

act of carrying a handgun “concealed,” or whether the court misapprehended the 

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scope of conduct that New Jersey law prohibits. In any event, a decision 

upholding a ban on concealed carry is inapposite. See also In re Bastiani, 23 Misc. 

3d 235, 237 (N.Y. County Ct. 2008). Amici also cite numerous New Jersey statecourt decisions that have no bearing on the issue herein at all – it appears Amici 

cited any New Jersey decisions that upheld any aspect of New Jersey’s gun laws 

after Heller, without regard to their lack of relevance to this case.7

Notwithstanding their oft-repeated claim that courts have limited and 

confined the Second Amendment to the home, the State Defendants identify only 

three decisions that in fact do so. All of these decisions were appeals from criminal 

convictions for the unlicensed carrying of handguns, and one of the decisions 

expressly noted that it did not reach the issue of whether the state’s discretionary 

permit law was constitutional. See Williams v. State, no. 16, 2011 Md. LEXIS 1, 

*15 & n.7 (Md. Jan. 5, 2011). The rationale, as expressed in the Illinois appellate 

decision People v. Dawson, 934 N.E.2d 598 (Ill. Ct. App. 2010), is that “Heller

specifically limited its ruling to interpreting the amendment’s protection of the 

right to possess handguns in the home, not the right to possess handguns outside 

the home.” Id. at 605-06; see also Williams, 2011 Md. LEXIS 1 at *31-32 (relying 

 

7

 Brady Amici cite In re Dubov, 981 A.2d 87 (App. Div. 2009), In re Echevarria, 2010 WL 

0428108 (App. Div. Aug. 20, 2010), and In re Novello, 2010 WL 2795030 (App. Div. Jul. 15, 

2010), but all of these concerned denials of firearms purchaser identification cards and/or permits 

to purchase handguns that were grounded in reasons revealed in the investigation. See Brady Br. 

at 1, 8. These cases are unrelated to the “justifiable need” requirement. 

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on Dawson); cf. Mack v. United States, 6 A.3d 1224, 1236 (D.C. 2010). The defect 

in this rationale – whether expressed by a results-oriented state court, or by the 

State Defendants, or by Amici – is that there is no part of the Heller decision that 

so limits the Court’s holding. The Dawson court justified its “limited holding” 

conclusion with a citation to two portions of Heller – 128 S. Ct. at 2801-02 and 

2815-16 – but neither portion indicates that the Court’s ruling is confined to the 

home. See Dawson, 934 N.E.2d at 605 (citing Heller at 128 S. Ct. 2801-02 and 

2815-16); see also Williams, 2011 Md. LEXIS 1 at *31-33 (relying on Dawson). 

POINT III:

THE “JUSTIFIABLE NEED” REQUIREMENT IS INHERENTLY

DISCRETIONARY AND FAILS REVIEW AS A PRIOR RESTRAINT

The “justifiable need” component of the Permit to Carry laws allows

officials to withhold Permits based on their opinion that applicants do not have 

“justifiable need.” Plaintiffs showed in their moving papers that under Cantwell v. 

Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940), and progeny, states and localities may not 

condition a license that is necessary to engage in constitutionally protected conduct 

on the grant of a license that officials have discretion to withhold. See Plaintiffs 

Br. at 26-32. The determination of “justifiable need” is a matter of opinion, and 

hence, the Permit laws are invalid in that they allow officials to withhold Permits 

on their opinion that “need” does not exist. See id. at 28-32. 

 

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A. There is No Basis to Depart from Marzzarella’s Instruction to Utilize 

First Amendment Standards of Review 

There is little doubt that the Marzzarella court was correct in its conclusion 

that First Amendment principles should generally apply to laws that burden the 

Second Amendment’s protections. See Plaintiffs Br. at 19-22; see also United 

States v. Skoien, 614 F.3d 638, 641 (7th Cir. 2010); United States v. Chester, no. 

09-4084, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 26508, *24-25 (4th Cir. Dec. 30, 2010). 

While the State Defendants purport to concede that First Amendment 

principles of review govern laws that infringe Second Amendment activities, the 

State Defendants contend that “[t]he First Amendment presents concerns that are 

not presented by the Second Amendment,” and they point to the footnoted 

qualification in Marzzarella that “the precise standards of scrutiny and how they 

apply may differ under the Second Amendment.” State Br. at 23 (quoting 

Marzzarella, 614 F.3d at 96 n.15). The Brady Amici go further, asserting that First 

Amendment principles should not govern because “[w]hile ‘words can never hurt 

me,’ guns are designed to inflict grievous injury and death.” Brady Br. at 14. 

Of course, “Arms” are weapons – they have inherent dangers. The Court’s 

decision in Heller recognizes that firearms also have the significant ability to 

protect life. See, e.g., Heller, 554 U.S. at 584-85, 609, 629. While Plaintiffs 

sharply disagree that recognizing the right to bear arms will increase the net 

dangers facing society, the enumeration of a constitutional right “to keep and bear 

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Arms” necessarily reflects a societal decision to protect the “keep[ing] and 

bear[ing] Arms” notwithstanding whatever danger may be unavoidably attendant. 

See id. at 634 (“The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of 

government – even the Third Branch of Government – the power to decide on a 

case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon.”). 

Moreover, the “safety” distinction offered by State Defendants and Brady 

Amici relies on a false assumption – that the conduct protected by the First 

Amendment does not raise significant risks and concerns for society. But this is 

not the case. While there is no doubt that guns can be dangerous, words can be 

powerful, and words have the ability to motivate large groups of people – for better 

or worse. While the rights of speech, petition, and assembly intrinsically raise 

public safety risks – sometimes acutely – modern First Amendment jurisprudence 

forbids the preclusion of these activities notwithstanding these risks.8

The Heller Court recognized this fundamental connection between the First 

and Second Amendments when it addressed whether societal interests could 

“balance away” the basic ability to engage in core Second Amendment activities. 

The Court observed that it had forced unwilling local officials to allow a neo-Nazi 

 

8

 It was speech, petition, and assembly – not guns – that recently overturned the Mubarak regime 

in Egypt. On the contrary, all of the guns in the army could not contain the power of speech, 

petition, and assembly. To the extent Amici would like to hang legal arguments on clichés, they 

would be well advised to remember that “the pen is mightier than the sword.” 

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group to parade through their town in National Socialist Party of America v. 

Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977). See Heller, 554 U.S. at 635. Few would dispute that a 

(substantially Jewish) community would have compelling public safety reasons for 

stopping a neo-Nazi group from parading, displaying swastikas, and distributing 

literature, but these safety reasons were insufficient to override the enumerated

rights of speech and assembly. See Skokie v. Nat’l Socialist Party, 373 N.E.2d 21, 

22 (Ill. 1978). Immediately after analogizing to Skokie, the Heller Court stated that 

the Second Amendment’s protection “is no different.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 635 

(emphasis added). 

The Marzzarella court’s qualification that “the precise standards of scrutiny 

and how they apply may differ under the Second Amendment,” Marzzarella, 614 

F.3d at 96 n.15 (emphasis added), is not carte blanche to apply standards of 

scrutiny that are heretofore unknown to the First Amendment. Rather, it is a 

recognition that First Amendment principles, and their application, must account 

for characteristics that distinguish the possession and carry of firearms from other 

protected activities. 

B. The Permit Laws Are Prior Restraints Because they Condition 

Constitutionally Protected Conduct on an Official Grant of Permission 

The State Defendants argue that “reasoning and case law [ ] support 

rejecting” prior restraint principles, and they point to the fact that Plaintiffs’ 

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moving papers do not cite authority “applying or even discussing the prior restraint 

framework in this context.” See State Br. at 22. 

However, a host of prior restraint cases establish that “the peaceful 

enjoyment of freedoms which the Constitution guarantees” may not be made 

“contingent upon the uncontrolled will of an official.” Staub v. Baxley, 355 U.S. 

313, 322 (1958) (emphasis added). The procedural requirements attendant prior 

restraints have been applied to a broad range of constitutionally protected acts. 

The Second Amendment was incorporated against the states only months 

ago. The dearth of on-point, post-Heller decisions owes to the emergent nature of 

Second Amendment jurisprudence and the basic fact that – unlike New Jersey – the 

vast majority of states already allow their citizens to carry handguns on reasonable 

and nondiscretionary terms. 

It is significant that the State Defendants cite no cases that reject the 

application of prior restraint principles to laws burdening the Second Amendment.9

Their failure to do so is not surprising – one need look no further than Heller

itself for authority to support the use of prior restraint principles. As noted in Point 

II(B), supra, one of the statutes at issue in Heller prohibited the carry of handguns 

at home, but another statute provided that the police department “may issue” a 

 

9

 The plaintiffs in Peruta did not raise the issue. See Peruta v. County of San Diego, no. 

09CV2371, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130878, *28-37 (S.D. Cal. Dec. 10, 2010) (detailing claims). 

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permit to carry. See Heller, 554 U.S. at 575-76. Plaintiff Dick Heller sought 

relief, but only in respect of his home. See id. Upon concluding that the Second 

Amendment protects the substantive right to possess and carry guns, the Court 

negated the discretionary aspect of the law and directed the District to issue a 

license that would satisfy the prayer for relief: 

Assuming that Heller is not disqualified from the exercise of 

Second Amendment rights, the District must permit him to 

register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in 

the home. 

Heller, 554 U.S. at 635 (emphasis added). 

The judicial treatment of state “right to bear arms” provisions also supports 

the application of prior restraint principles to schemes for licensing the carry of 

handguns. For example, in 1980 the Supreme Court of Indiana found that a state 

constitutional right to “bear arms” protected the right to carry handguns, and it 

accordingly overturned a state law that allowed officials to deny permits to carry 

handguns on the ground that a “proper reason” was not present. See Schubert v. 

De Bard, 398 N.E.2d 1339, 1341 (Ind. 1980); see also Kellogg v. City of Gary, 562 

N.E.2d 685, 696 (Ind. 1990) (city officials could not refuse to distribute 

applications for permits to carry handguns). The court explained: 

[I]t is clear from the record that the superintendent decided the 

application on the basis that the statutory reference to “a proper 

reason” vested in him the power and duty to subjectively 

evaluate an assignment of “self-defense” as a reason for 

desiring a license and the ability to grant or deny the license 

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upon the basis of whether the applicant “needed” to defend 

himself. 

Such an approach contravenes the essential nature of the 

constitutional guarantee. It would supplant a right with a mere 

administrative privilege which might be withheld simply on the 

basis that such matters as the use of firearms are better left to 

the organized military and police forces even where defense of 

the individual citizen is involved. 

Schubert, 398 N.E.2d at 1341 (emphasis added). 

While Plaintiffs respond to the State Defendants’ proposed “reasonable 

regulation test” in Point IV(B), infra, it is significant that the only case the State 

Defendants cite to support this purported standard actually supports the use of prior 

restraint principles – and indicates that discretionary “need” requirements like New 

Jersey’s are invalid. See State Br. at 21 (citing Mosby v. Devine, 851 A.2d 1031 

(R.I. 2004)). The Supreme Court of Rhode Island’s decision in Mosby concerned a 

state law that – like the New Jersey laws at issue here – conditioned licenses to 

carry handguns “upon a proper showing of need.” Mosby, 851 A.2d at 1035 

(quoting R.I.G.L. § 11-47-18(a)). The Mosby court upheld the “need” requirement 

because it found that a separate provision of state law provided for the 

“mandatory” issuance of carry licenses. See id. at 1047 (“Because the Firearms 

Act provides for both discretionary and mandatory licensing to qualified 

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applicants, the constitutional guarantee to keep and bear arms is fulfilled.”).10 

However, in a discussion that is particularly pertinent to the case at bar, the Rhode 

Island court was careful to qualify that a law conditioning carry licenses on a 

finding of “need” would be unconstitutional: 

One does not need to be an expert in American history to 

understand the fault inherent in a gun-permitting system that 

would allow a licensing body carte blanche authority to decide 

who is worthy of carrying a concealed weapon. The 

constitutional right to bear arms would be illusory, of course, if 

it could be abrogated entirely on the basis of an unreviewable 

unrestricted licensing scheme. 

Id. at 1050. 

Once it is established that a Permit is necessary to engage in constitutionally 

protected conduct – to possess and (particularly) carry a handgun outside the home 

– the application of prior restraint principles is straightforward. 

C. The Determination of “Justifiable Need” is Plainly and Inherently 

Discretionary 

The State Defendants characterize the “justifiable need” requirement as 

nondiscretionary, arguing that the requirement “is codified and judiciously 

applied” and “is a carefully constructed regulatory scheme bounded by reasonable, 

identified standards.” State Br. at 24, 25. They also point to the statutory language 

 

10 The operative distinction between the two provisions is that § 11-47-18 (the discretionary 

provision) allows for the issuance of a license “to carry a pistol or revolver, whether concealed 

or not,” while § 11-47-11 (the mandatory provision) provides authorization only “to carry 

concealed upon his or her person.” Compare R.I.G.L. § 11-47-11 with R.I.G.L. § 11-14-18(a) 

(emphasis added); see also Mosby, 851 A.2d at 1078 (Flanders, J., dissenting). 

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that a Superior Court judge “shall” issue a Permit, upon being satisfied that (inter 

alia) “justifiable need” is present. See id. at 3. 

The State Defendants’ argument fails because the operative issue is not

whether there are standards that are “reasonable, identified,” or “codified.” 

Instead, the licensing law “must contain narrow, objective, and definite standards 

to guide the licensing authority,” and it is invalid if it “allows arbitrary 

application.” Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S. 123, 130-31 

(1992) (emphasis added); accord Riel v. City of Bradford, 485 F.3d 736, 755 (3d 

Cir. 2007). In Forsyth County, the law at issue authorized county officials to 

assess a fee for demonstrations, and (in pertinent part) it authorized the county to 

“adjust the amount to be paid in order to meet the expense incident to the 

administration of the Ordinance and to the maintenance of public order in the 

matter licensed.” Forsyth County, 505 U.S. at 127 (quoting ordinance). Although 

a directive to set a fee in accordance with the “expenses incident” to a 

demonstration may be “reasonable, identified,” and “codified,” the Court ruled the 

law unconstitutional because “[t]he decision how much to charge for police 

protection or administrative time – or even whether to charge at all – is left to the 

whim of the administrator.” Id. at 133. 

A permissible license law identifies grounds for denial that are “reasonably 

specific and objective” and – significantly – that can be effectively enforced on 

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review. See Thomas v. Chi. Park Dist., 534 U.S. 316, 324 (2002). For example, 

the Supreme Court struck down a Dallas ordinance licensing adult businesses 

because the ordinance created a possibility that officials might withhold licensure 

indefinitely. See FW/PBS, Inc. v. Dallas, 493 U.S. 215, 227 (1990) (“the city’s 

regulatory scheme allows indefinite postponement of the issuance of a license”). 

New Jersey’s requirement of “justifiable need” plainly fails under this 

standard, and the State’s articulation of “urgent necessity” fares no better. Again, 

the “urgent necessity” standard provides that “justifiable need” lies in: 

urgent necessity for self-protection, as evidenced by specific 

threats or previous attacks which demonstrate a special danger 

to the applicant’s life that cannot be avoided by means other 

than by issuance of a permit to carry a handgun. 

N.J.A.C. § 13:54-2.4(d). This standard provides no guidance for determining what 

constitutes “specific threats or previous attacks,” nor for determining whether those 

threats and/or attacks “demonstrate a special danger to the applicant’s life” or 

“cannot be avoided by [other] means.” How many threats are sufficient? How 

serious must a prior attack be? When does a threat or attack demonstrate special 

danger to an individual’s life, and when is the threat or attack merely random? 

When can an applicant “avoid” the need to carry a handgun? Perhaps the applicant 

could move to a better neighborhood? While Plaintiffs raised these issues in their 

moving papers, see Plaintiffs Br. at 31, the State Defendants do not respond to 

them, except to make the general statement that the standard is “reasonable, 

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identified” and “codified.” If the standard is permissibly definite, then why were 

two of the Plaintiffs in this action approved by the police, but denied by the court? 

Contrary to the State Defendants’ suggestion, see State Br. at 3, the 

mandatory “shall” language in the Administrative Code does not overcome the fact 

that officials have discretion to determine whether or not a person has “justifiable 

need.” Indeed, in Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147 (1969), the 

ordinance under consideration provided that the commission “shall grant a written 

permit . . . unless in its judgment the public welfare, peace, safety, health, decency, 

good order, morals or convenience require that it be refused.” Id. at 149-50 

(quoting ordinance) (emphasis added). The “shall grant” language was no bar to 

the Court’s conclusion that the ordinance “conferred upon the City Commission 

virtually unbridled and absolute power” to deny permission. See id. at 150. 

POINT IV:

“JUSTIFIABLE NEED” IS AN IMPERMISSIBLE BURDEN

The “justifiable need” requirement is impermissible because people have a 

fundamental constitutional right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. Hence, a 

law that limits this franchise to those who are determined to have an “urgent 

necessity for self protection” is impermissible – just as a law limiting the rights of 

speech or assembly to those with an “urgent necessity for free expression” would 

be impermissible. Plaintiffs Br. at 33-39. 

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The State Defendants respond by proposing that the Court adopt an analytic 

approach – the “reasonable regulation test” – that would uphold laws that preclude

the exercise of core Second Amendment activities on public-safety rationales. See

State Br. at 19-21. Anticipating that this argument will fail – it is, after all, plainly 

foreclosed by Heller – the State Defendants then propose that the Court apply the 

lowest level of scrutiny possible and sustain the measure as being necessary to 

meet the State’s public-safety claims. See id. at 17-18, 21-22. 

A. The Supreme Court Explicitly Rejected the Attempt to “Balance 

Away” the Core Protections of the Second Amendment 

The State Defendants propose a “reasonable regulation test” that would 

(purportedly) sustain the State’s ability to withhold license on the ground of lack of 

“need.” See State Br. at 20-21. To the extent State Defendants argue that this test 

supplies a basis for precluding the general ability to “bear” a handgun, the claim 

need not delay this Court long: The Supreme Court explicitly rejected it in Heller. 

The State Defendants explain that their proffered “reasonable regulation 

test” provides (vaguely) that “States and localities retain legislative freedom to 

address the problem of handgun violence with reasonable regulations under the 

Second Amendment.” Id. at 20. The sine qua non of this proposed standard is that 

it would “permit[ ] New Jersey to assess the corresponding dangers and risk to the 

public and to the person seeking to carry a handgun” in determining whether or not 

to issue a Permit to Carry. Id. at at 27 (emphasis added). Brady Amici explain “it 

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‘focuses on the balance of the interests at stake.’” Brady Br. at 16 (quoting State v. 

Cole, 665 N.W. 2d 328, 338 (Wis. 2003)). 

Because this proposed test would allow the State to preclude the bearing of 

arms based on its assessment of relative societal interests, it must be rejected. As 

Plaintiffs showed in their moving papers (pp. 24-25), Justice Breyer’s dissent 

proposed exactly the same “interest-balancing” approach: 

I shall ask how the statute seeks to further the governmental 

interests that it serves, how the statute burdens the interests that 

the Second Amendment seeks to protect, and whether there are 

practical less burdensome ways of furthering those interests. 

The ultimate question is whether the statute imposes burdens 

that, when viewed in light of the statute’s legitimate objectives, 

are disproportionate. 

Heller, 554 U.S. at 693 (Breyer, J., dissenting) (emphasis added). Under this 

approach, the ultimate inquiry determining whether a law was a “permissible 

regulation” would have been whether that “law disproportionately burden[ed 

Second] Amendment-protected interests.” Id. at 714 (emphasis in source). A law 

could preclude the acts of keeping and bearing handguns – the ultimate burden on 

the right – so long as it sought “to further the sort of life-preserving and publicsafety interests that the Court has called compelling.” Id. at 705. 

However, the Court explicitly rejected this “reasonable” or “proportionate” 

interest-balancing approach in no uncertain terms: 

We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose 

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balancing” approach. The very enumeration of the right takes 

out of the hands of government – even the Third Branch of 

Government – the power to decide on a case-by-case basis 

whether the right is really worth insisting upon. 

Heller, 554 U.S. at 634 (first two emphases added). 

Brady Amici try to distance their approach from Justice Breyer’s by 

asserting that their standard would be “a more heightened form of scrutiny than the 

rational basis test” and “more demanding than the ‘interest balancing’ test 

suggested by Justice Breyer in dissent[ ] because it does not permit states to 

prohibit all firearm ownership.” Brady Br. at 16. However, Justice Breyer in fact 

also maintained that his test was more stringent than rational basis review. See 

Heller, 554 U.S. at 689-90 (Breyer, J., dissenting); see also id. at 710-11. 

Moreover, Justice Breyer’s approach also eschewed prohibitions on all firearms, 

instead upholding just the prohibition of handguns. See id. at 708. Tellingly (and 

probably fatally), Justice Breyer explicitly relied on the same academic article11

that Brady Amici now rely upon to articulate their “reasonable regulation” test. 

See id. at 691; see also Brady Br. at 15. 

B. There is No Basis for Applying the Proposed “Reasonable Regulation 

Test” 

The only decision the State Defendants cite to support their claim that a 

“reasonable regulation test” should govern the scope of the Second Amendment’s 

 

11 Adam Winkler, Scrutinizing the Second Amendment, 105 Mich. L. Rev. 683 (2007). 

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protection is Mosby v. Devine, 851 A.2d 1031 (R.I. 2004), which predates Heller

by four years. See State Br. at 21, 25. The State Defendants’ failure to cite even a 

single post-Heller decision embracing this approach is itself telling. There are 

certainly plenty of cases that address the standard of review. Remarkably, a close 

review of the decision cited shows that their “reasonable regulation test” should 

not apply to the Second Amendment. 

The Rhode Island state constitution protects a “right to keep and bear arms,” 

but the Mosby court interpreted this provision differently than the Supreme Court 

interpreted the Second Amendment in Heller. See Mosby, 851 A.2d at 1041-42. 

Specifically, the Mosby court found that the right to “keep” arms was an individual 

right, but that the right to “bear” arms did not “extend[ ] beyond the military 

context.” Id. at 1042. It was in this context that the Mosby court ruled that 

restrictions on the public carry of firearms should be tested using a “reasonable 

regulation” standard. See id. at 1044. 

Of course, the Supreme Court concluded in Heller that the Second 

Amendment protects an “individual right to possess and carry weapons.” Heller, 

554 U.S. at 592 (emphasis added). Even accepting, arguendo, the Mosby court’s 

rationale that the “reasonable regulation” standard should apply under the Rhode 

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Island constitution, that rationale has no application to the Second Amendment’s 

right to bear arms.12

Brady Amici claim that Professor Eugene Volokh supports their “reasonable 

regulation test,” but this is not the case. See Brady Br. at 16. Professor Volokh’s 

article discussed various ways that courts could “translate th[e newly recognized 

Second Amendment] right into workable constitutional doctrine,” and he did 

mention briefly that “some” states had enforced state constitutional provisions by 

“asking whether a restriction is a ‘reasonable regulation’ or a prohibition.” See 

Volokh, supra p. 21, at 1445, 1458. However, Professor Volokh explains that 

regardless of what constitutional doctrines are ultimately applied, states are not

free to preclude citizens from carrying handguns: 

Heller stated that bans on concealed carry of firearms are so 

traditionally recognized that they must be seen as 

constitutionally permissible. . . . 

The same cannot, however, be said about general bans on 

carrying firearms in public, which prohibit open as well as 

concealed carrying. Heller expressly concluded that “the right 

to . . . bear arms” referred to carrying arms. 

Id. at 1516. 

 

12 While the court’s rationale in Mosby indicates that the approach should not be applied in this 

case (notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s previous rejection of it!), it is significant that the 

New Jersey law would not pass muster even under this standard. As discussed in supra Point 

III(B), the Mosby court found that a law allowing officials to withhold carry permits on the basis 

of “need” would not be constitutional. See Mosby, 851 A.2d at 1047. 

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Brady Amici attempt to analogize to “reasonableness” standards developed 

to examine the Eighth Amendment’s protection against “cruel and unusual” 

punishments, the right to privacy, the Fifth Amendment’s protection against 

deprivation without “due process” of law, and the Fourth Amendment’s protection 

against “unreasonable” search and seizure. See Brady Br. at 15 n.7. This attempt 

fails and reveals the defect in Amici’s argument. These four constitutional 

protections do not concern enumerated rights to engage in affirmative acts. Rather, 

they concern constitutional protections that are not enumerated or that require 

consideration of “reasonableness” by their terms.13

Finally, Brady Amici cite a slew of additional pre-Heller state-court 

decisions to support their “reasonable regulation” proposal. See id. at 15-17. 

These are the same cases that Professor Winkler used to develop and articulate his 

interest-balancing proposal. See Winkler, supra note 11, at 686-726.14 And, as 

 

13 For example, a punishment will be deemed “cruel and unusual” if it is “a severe punishment 

that is clearly and totally rejected throughout society” or that is “patently unnecessary.” Furman 

v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 281 (1972). These tests are essentially founded in an assessment of 

whether the punishment is reasonable. 

14 See Winkler, supra note 11, at 686-87 & nn.11-13, 701 & n.102, 705 & n.130, 711 & n.164, 

715 & nn.179-80, 716 & n.186, 717 & nn.188 & 193-94, 718 & n.198, 719 & nn.191 & 201 & 

205 & 208, 723-24 & nn.233-37, 726 & nn.250 & 252 (citing State v. Hamdan, 665 N.W.2d 785 

(Wis. 2003), State v. Cole, 665 N.W. 2d 328 (Wis. 2003), Robertson v. City & County of Denver, 

874 P.2d 325 (Colo. 1994), State v. Comeau, 448 N.W.2d 595 (Neb. 1989), , Trinen v. City of 

Denver, 53 P.3d 754 (Colo. Ct. App. 2002), and State v. Dawson, 159 S.E.2d 1 (N.C. 1968)). 

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discussed above, and in Plaintiffs’ moving papers, the Supreme Court has already 

consider, and rejected, Professor Winkler’s proposal. 

C. The “Justifiable Need” Requirement is an Impermissible Burden on 

the Exercise of Constitutional Rights 

The standard of scrutiny is not outcome-dispositive because the “need” 

requirement does not leave open any alternative channels and is not narrowly 

tailored. Regardless of whether intermediate or strict scrutiny were applied, the 

Permit laws would not pass muster. See Plaintiffs Br. at 34. The State 

Defendants’ suggestion that Plaintiffs’ case hangs on the application of strict 

scrutiny, see State Br. at 21, is incorrect. 

The State Defendants argue that the “justifiable need” requirement “is a 

mere regulation rather than a prohibition” and that it “does not prohibit the 

carrying of a handgun but affords a person the ability to do so upon demonstration 

of need.” Id. at 15, 20. The State Defendants argue that the Court should apply 

intermediate scrutiny in light of “the body of case law which recently has 

addressed Second Amendment issues and rejected the application of strict 

scrutiny.” Id. at 21. 

The State Defendants are erroneous in their argument that intermediate 

scrutiny simply applies, ipso facto, to laws that burden the Second Amendment. It 

is not the subject matter (e.g. “guns”) that determines the applicable standard of 

scrutiny, but rather, it is the nature of the conduct being regulated and the burden

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that is at issue. See United States v. Chester, no. 09-4084, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 

26508, *24-25 (4th Cir. Dec. 30, 2010) (“In the analogous First Amendment 

context, the level of scrutiny we apply depends on the nature of the conduct being 

regulated and the degree to which the challenged law burdens the right.”). In 

Marzzarella, the Third Circuit explained that the level of scrutiny applied to a 

burden is intrinsically tied to both the scope and nature of the burden imposed: 

Strict scrutiny does not apply automatically any time an 

enumerated right is involved. We do not treat First Amendment 

challenges that way. Strict scrutiny is triggered by contentbased restrictions on speech in a public forum, but contentneutral time, place, and manner restrictions in a public forum 

trigger a form of intermediate scrutiny. 

Marzzarella, 614 F.3d at 96. Laws that target conduct that is within the core 

values of the First Amendment – such as free expression – are likely to trigger 

strict scrutiny, as are laws that target the core value that the Second Amendment 

protects – the right of self-defense. See Plaintiffs Br. at 20. A key aspect of the 

Marzzarella court’s decision to apply intermediate scrutiny to the ban on guns with 

obliterated serial numbers was the court’s conclusion that “[t]he burden imposed 

by the law does not severely limit the possession of firearms.” Marzzarella, 614 

F.3d at 97. 

The “justifiable need” requirement, in contrast, is a flat prohibition on the 

ability to carry a handgun in public, and it is one that applies unless a government 

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official determines that “need” exists – a circumstance that rarely occurs under the 

implementing regulations. 

Thus, if the Court finds it necessary to apply a specific standard of “burden” 

scrutiny, then the Permit laws should trigger strict scrutiny for the two essential 

reasons identified in Plaintiffs’ moving papers: (1) they completely preclude the 

act of bearing a handgun, and (2) their animating factor is a determination about an 

individual’s “need” to exercise his or her fundamental constitutional right. See

Plaintiffs Br. at 35-37. The State Defendants are correct that most federal courts 

have applied intermediate scrutiny – but then, most federal courts have addressed 

bona fide “regulations,” such as requirements that firearms be carried openly, or 

concealed, or that persons seeking to carry firearms undertake training, or 

demonstrate competence. 

The State Defendants’ characterization of the requirement as a “regulation” 

rather than a “ban” is of no moment. See United States v. Playboy Entm’t Group, 

Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 812 (2000) (“It is of no moment that the statute does not 

impose a complete prohibition. The distinction between laws burdening and laws 

banning speech is but a matter of degree. The Government’s content-based 

burdens must satisfy the same rigorous scrutiny as its content-based bans.”); see 

also Marzzarella, 614 F.3d at 94 (“infringements on protected rights can be, 

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depending on the facts, as constitutionally suspect as outright bans” and citing 

Playboy’s “matter of degree” language). 

The State Defendants assert that the “justifiable need” requirement protects 

important and compelling governmental interest in that it “combats the dangers and 

risks associated with the accidental and misuse of handguns, and reduces the use of 

handguns in crime.” State Br. at 26. 

However, contrary to the State Defendants’ (not explicitly stated) argument, 

the State of New Jersey has not made a blanket legislative pronouncement that 

handguns are too dangerous to allow people to carry. On the contrary, both private 

security guards and retired police officers are issued Permits upon their satisfaction 

of the same training and proficiency requirements that the Plaintiffs themselves 

satisfied – but without the requirement that they demonstrate “an urgent necessity 

for self-protection.” See N.J.S.A. § 2C:39-6(l) (retired police); N.J.A.C. § 13:54-

2.4(d)(2) (security guards). As such, any claim that there are no reasonable 

alternatives, or that the law is narrowly tailored, must fail. If, indeed, the activity 

of carrying a handgun were too dangerous to allow without a discretionary 

determination of an “urgent necessity for self-protection,” then the State would not 

allow it – for anyone! 

To the extent the State deems it prudent or advisable to enact regulations to 

prevent the accidental or criminal misuse of handguns, then (as a general premise) 

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it is free to do so. Plaintiffs have stressed that this lawsuit does not challenge the 

State’s requirements of training and proficiency. However, because the Second 

Amendment protects an enumerated right to possess and carry guns, the State 

cannot preclude either of these activities by citing claimed risks to the public. This 

is especially the case where – as here – the State plainly has not concluded that the 

claimed risks of carrying handguns require a complete prohibition on the activity. 

CONCLUSION

Plaintiffs respectfully submit that, in the end, this is an easy case. New 

Jersey law requires a license to generally “possess” a handgun, and specifically, to 

carry that handgun anywhere except in one’s home or business or on one’s 

property. However, people have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms, and 

the Supreme Court has held that this right specifically protects the possession and 

carrying of handguns for self-defense. 

Because people have a constitutional right to engage in the activity, they also 

have a constitutional right to obtain the necessary licenses – without having to 

prove to an official that their claimed “need” is “justifiable.” 

The claim that the Second Amendment does not apply beyond the home 

fails. The Supreme Court did not limit its holding to the facts presented, and 

certainly, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” does not reference any 

delineation that would end at the threshold of one’s home. While some Second 

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Amendment issues may remain undecided, there is no doubt that one must hold a 

Permit to Carry in order to carry a handgun in New Jersey. And thus, there is no 

doubt that the State may not withhold Permits on the ground that one does not have 

“a justifiable need” to exercise his or her constitutional right.

Dated: February 18, 2011 

Respectfully submitted, 

DUANE MORRIS LLP

Delaware Limited Liability Partnership 

 By: 

 David D. Jensen, Esq. 

Robert P. Firriolo, Esq. 

744 Broad Street, Suite 1200 

Newark, NJ 07102-3889 

973.424.2000 

Attorneys for Plaintiffs 

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