September 25, 2014:
17 Year Old’s Science Fair Project May Lead to NJ Enforcing 2002 Smart Gun Bill
In 2002, then-NJ Governor Jim McGreevey (D) signed the Personalized Handgun Law (N.J.S. 2C:58-2.2 et seq.), legislation mandating that all handguns sold in New Jersey be “smart guns” within three years after the technology becomes available and is deemed sufficiently safe by the state attorney general. Under the bill, the technology limiting the handgun’s operational use may include, for example, radio frequency tagging, touch memory; fingerprint, remote control and magnetic encoding.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence recently filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Mercer County, naming current Attorney General John Jay Hoffman as a defendant. The lawsuit seeks a writ of mandamus to compel the NJ legislature to comply with the Personalized Handgun Law, which requires the legislature to submit reports every 6 months detailing the status of personalized firearm technology around the country. The lawsuit also alleges that the NJ legislature has ignored the recent availability of personalized handguns for retail purchase in Maryland and California. In relevant news, at a recent high school science fair, 17 year-old Kai Kloepfer created and introduced a firearm model that can only be fired when it recognizes its user’s fingerprints. The model is still in its initial design phases and has not yet been manufactured. A copy of NJ’s 2002 Personalized Handgun Law can be found here. A copy of the Brady Center lawsuit can be found here.
Federal Firearm Purchase Requests Decrease in Texas
According to recent reports, the number of Texans seeking the ATF’s permission to purchase firearms has decreased 18% this year. Many are attributing the decrease to a decline in public fear of the imposition of stricter federal firearm regulations. ATF Agent Nicole Strong has suggested that another possible explanation for the decrease is individuals purchasing firearms from gun shows from someone other than a Federal Firearm Licensee (which does not require a background check).