New Jersey found a new trick for undermining the 2nd Amendment rights of its citizens, but gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson is having none of that noise.
Back in October New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal filed administrative subpoenas looking for evidence of fraudulent advertising from S&W.
What exactly would constitute false advertising in Grewal's book?
Well, they looked back through decades of advertisements for any claims that firearms make homes safer, or any indication that a gun could be used to safely defend your home.
But Smith & Wesson says this is just the latest in an "unconstitutional fishing expedition" by the AG to try and undermine gun rights. And now they are suing the state, claiming the whole thing is politically motivated.
"Smith & Wesson also says the subpoenas are politically motivated, noting that Grewal has partnered with several anti-Second Amendment groups, like Do Not Stand Idly By, to seek new methods to restrict gun ownership."
And this is just the latest anti-2A tactic from New Jersey. In 2018 Governor Phil Murphy announced a monthly report that would list the gun manufacturer as the source for every "gun crime" in the state. Gun manufacturers have called that "Name and Shame" program "unreasonable and purely agenda-driven, likening it to announcing which car was used in a drunk driving fatality."
The wild thing is that the state has openly teamed up with anti-Second Amendment groups to develop strategies for limiting access to guns. The 57-page complaint notes that this exact strategy for coming after gun manufacturers through consumer protection and false advertising laws was suspiciously discussed earlier this month in a conference at New York University.
Smith & Wesson's complaint is pretty spicy on the whole. But this bit is the nugget of their argument against the state.
"The intentional overreach of the facially invalid Subpoena and punitive intent of the Attorney General's ‘name and shame' initiative makes no sense as an exercise of prosecutorial authority, but they make perfect sense when seen for what they really are – the latest chapter in efforts by anti-Second Amendment Activists, hostile to the private ownership of firearms, to impose, through coercion, a gun control agenda which they largely have been unable to impose through federal or state legislative process or through the courts."
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It's a good reminder that there are people in power who are willing to overturn your constitutional rights by any means necessary. It's for your own good after all.
