In re Denial of Application of Z.K. for a New Jersey Firearms Purchaser Identification Card and Permit to Purchase, 440 N.J. Super. 394 (App. Div. 2015). Yesterday, while many of us were attending the New Jersey State Bar Association Annual Meeting in Atlantic City, the Appellate Division released a short opinion by Judge Accurso that stands for a simple principle: because a state statute, N.J.S.A. 2C:58-3f, prescribes the requirements for applications for permits to purchase handguns (forms created by the Superintendent of the State Police), and because another provision, N.J.S.A. 2C:58-3g, says that a “licensing authority” may not add any “conditions or requirements” to the application, a municipality cannot require an applicant to complete another form as part of the application process.
Z.K. applied to the Township of East Brunswick for a firearms purchaser identification card and a permit to buy a handgun. The Township denied that application as “incomplete” because Z.K. had not filled out a “Certification of Juvenile Record” that the Township required as part of the application process. When Z.K. appealed the denial to the Law Division, that court upheld the denial on the grounds that the Township’s form was merely duplicative of a question on the Superintendent’s form and therefore did not impose any additional requirements. Z.K. appealed to the Appellate Division and won a reversal.
Judge Accurso applied the de novo standard of review to the legal issue in question. She concluded that “[a]lthough perhaps not in conflict with the superintendent’s form [in a footnote, Judge Accurso found it “unclear” what information the Township actually sought and, thus, whether the municipal form was redundant], the [municipality’s] additional form is contrary to the plain meaning of subsections e and f of N.J.S.A. 2C:58-3.” The panel remanded the case so that East Brunswick could complete its investigation of the permit application and decide whether to issue it. The Township could not, however, rely on Z.K.’s decision not to complete the municipal form as a basis to deny his application.
The Legislature’s “command that applications be in the ‘form prescribed’ by the superintendent and obtainable from the State Police, local law enforcement and licensed retail dealers and that ‘no conditions or requirements [be] added to the form or content of that application precludes an interpretation that would allow the hundreds of municipal Police Departments in this State to develop applications supplementing the form promulgated by the Superintendent of the Division of State Police…. East Brunswick may not burden an applicant with redundant requirements any more than it may impose conditions or requirements not authorized by the Legislature or the Superintendent of the Division of State Police.”