Legality of driving to NJ range with rifles from NY?

[AlexI]

Hi guys,

can you give me an advice on the legalities involved?
I want to get together with a friend in NJ for some shooting at his local range, and wonder if it would be legal for me to bring my rifles (locked, unloaded, in the trunk, of course)? My rifles are legal in NY, actually even registered since I live in NYC...

Thanks.
Alex.

 

[AlexI]

Sorry, an additional question: it is possible that we will go to a range just over the border in PA, then I will be just driving through NJ to pick him up on the way to PA. Any difference from NJ legal point of view?

Alex.

 

[davec]

http://www.njsp.org/about/fire_trans.html
http://www.njsp.org/about/firearms.html

 

[geekWithA.45]

I'm not a lawyer, blah blah blah.

NJ has an exemption for out of staters traveling _directly_ to or from a range in Jersey for target practice. Your guns must be unloaded, separated from your ammo, securely cased, and trunked.

You may also travel THROUGH NJ under similiar circumstances, with additional protections of federal peacable travel laws.


Stopping off to pickup your friend on the way to PA introduces a wrinkle, in that it MIGHT be interpreted as a discontinuity of travel. Flipside, there's a "reasonable and necessary" escape clause.

Bottom line: guns in Jersey is a legally perilous situation, no matter how scrupulous you are. Ill fortune + Bad cop + bad judge = big bux to lawyer and uncertain outcome.


Practical tips:
--------------

Avoid having hollow point ammo. Yes, it's technically legal under various exemptions, blah, blah blah, but it gets pretty technical, and not worth the extra headaches should you be boarded.

 

[AlexI]

Thanks guys, just what I needed to know.

Alex.

 

[Phoenix_III]

Mind the list of banned arms. No way to transport them through PRNJ.

 

[Travis McGee]

Doesn't NJ have some other rotten gun laws, like no hollowpoint pistol ammo? I've heard lots of traffic stop nightmare stories.

 

[MAUSER88]

Hollow point bullets are perfectly legal in NJ.

 

[gunsmith]

Jersey is so bad

before hr218 my brother (a cop in a town near NYC)
would avoid driving there,and drive to PA if he wanted
to pack while driving down to Florida.
IANAL (or in LE)
so I stay the heck away from my hometown of NY and never visit
NJ either.
To paraphrase S Wolf,I don't miss the climate or the beaches either.
NY/NJ serve to remind me that some places are worse then SF.

 

[carpettbaggerr]

No way to transport them through PRNJ.

You can transport them in compliance with the FOPA. You aren't subject to their nonsense if you just pass through the state.

 

[RavenVT100]

It's hard to transport anything in NJ without the NJFID, unless you are just passing through the state. If you have the NJFID, it "entitles" you to transport pistols and rifles according to the state's laws.