Hold on... just relax.
First off, it's budget season. Everybody is far too busy worrying about the budget than to push this bill. The text of the bill has been out since Friday and we haven't seen any articles in the Star Ledger or Courier Post about the menace that 15 round magazines are in New Jersey. If they were serious, you would hear articles in the paper about the threat of high capacity magazines.
My guess is that newspapers looked at the story and then then scratched their heads saying: "Oh, wait. We already have a magazine ban, so they are just arguing over 5 rounds? It's not like we have 75 round drums on the street, so I guess it's pretty good as it is. Let's print an editorial about teachers instead."
Second, the bill was just sent to the Law and Public Safety Committee, where it will probably sit until it dies. I don't think anybody wants to touch this bill, but it is one of those things that is useful to have around. I'll explain why.
The bill was sponsored by the Assemblywoman Annette Quijan of the 20th District, and Assemblyman Lou Greenwald of the 6th district. What do the two have in common? Both represent fairly liberal areas. Assemblywoman Quijan represents an area where most of her constituents are black, Hispanic or immigrants. Democrats outnumber Republicans there by an order of 4 to 1. In places like Elizabeth, guns = crime. There are plenty of people there who wouldn't mind if handguns dropped off the face of the earth.
Assemblyman Greenwald represents a list of wealthy towns like Voorhees, Cherry Hill, Haddonfield and Collingswood, although he bumps into the more blue collar hunter-types like those in Audubon park. Democrats outnumber Republicans here as well, although this area tilted in favor of Congressman Jon Runyan in the last election. People in this district either hunt with shotguns, or they live the kind of life where guns are just something they see in movies.
What does this mean?
It's just a publicity stunt. This is an election year. It's a stunt so that these two can send out flyers in midsummer with scary assault weapons on them and say: "We introduced legislation to ban THESE!
Here's why it isn't going to pass:
Back when One Gun a Month passed you didn't see a lot of complaining because we were in the middle of a recession and who the heck had enough money to buy more than one gun a month anyway? The hunters weren't effected. The IDPA/collector guys were effected, but they could get a special permit from the state police if they wanted to buy multiple guns.
But this law is a different story.
If NJ had gone to 10 round magazines when the assault weapons ban sunset in 2004, this wouldn't be an issue. But their old 15 round law kicked in, and over the past 7 years, plenty of people have purchased handguns.
If you have an AR-15 in New Jersey, odds are that you already have 10 round magazines for it. Maybe you have a pinned 15 rounder, but they are expensive. But if you have a handgun, the odds are very good that you have a 15 round magazine. I think the Assembly knows this. I also think that they know the gun owners of NJ are going to raise a massive ruckus if this gets to the floor.
Why? The other laws didn't really effect people, it was just feel good legislation, but this is a law that will make instant criminals out of people and confiscate their property. Campaign contributers don't like having their property confiscated. Heck, this law will even effect some NJ legislators like Senator Van Drew. He's a gun owner and I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to have to drop his magazines off at the police station and pay for new 10 rounders.
Finally, we have a Republican governor who wants to be president someday. Remember that an elephant never forgets. He will not be President someday unless he vetos this bill.
So all that being said, I doubt it will ever get out of committee.
