A New Jersey judge told a man Tuesday the Second Amendment does not overrule local gun laws when he lost the right to own a firearm and ammunition after a court dropped domestic violence charges against him.
An appellate judge upheld an earlier Superior Court judge’s decision that Arthur Vinogradsky was no longer eligible to own a gun, reported NJ Radio 101.5.
According to NJ Radio 101.5, Vinogradsky’s wife obtained a restraining order in June 2013 against him and police seized his weapons as well as arrested him for having “high capacity magazines and hollow point bullets.”
His wife later dropped the complaint against him and he successfully participated in a pretrial intervention program, which enabled him to avoid a criminal conviction on the weapons charges.
However, the judge went forward with seizing his gun ownership rights from him, claiming that he assaulted his wife and committed a crime.
Additionally, the judge said in his opinion that while the Second Amendment guarantees the individual right to have a firearm for self-defense, the U.S. constitution does not supersede “states’ enforcement of their ‘longstanding prohibitions’ on firearm possession” and “like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.”
This decision falls on the heels two other bizarre cases involving New Jersey judges denying gun permits.
One judge rejected a gun permit to a man earlier this month, because of his “atrocious” 15 year driving record.
Judge Joseph Rea rejected Rahman Keith Idlett’s gun permit application saying that granting a carry permit “was against the interest of the public health, safety and welfare.”
“Having a driving record this atrocious consistently, over a long period of time, says a lot about a person and their respect for the law and their ability to comport themselves appropriately within legal boundaries,” Rea said in his opinion.
Another man, NJ Radio reported, was rejected a carry permit by a judge last week because he could not show “justifiable need” to have one — even though the man is a U.S. Army soldier who works at a military base that has been under the threat of terrorist attacks.
