A full en banc panel of the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 10-5 on July 17 to strike down New Jersey's ban on semi-automatic rifles and its separate restriction on magazines holding more than 10 rounds, in a ruling that marks the first time any federal appeals court has invalidated a state-level assault weapons ban. The Reload first reported the decision, and NRA-ILA called it "historic" in a statement issued the same day. The case is Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, Inc. v. Attorney General.

Writing for the majority, Judge Arianna Freeman applied the Supreme Court's 2022 Bruen standard, which requires the government to justify any firearms restriction by identifying a historical analog in the nation's traditional regulatory practice. New Jersey's attorney general could produce no sufficient historical analog for either provision, the court found. The majority went further than the original district court ruling — which had struck down the assault firearms ban only as applied to Colt AR-15 models — expanding the holding to cover the full class of semi-automatic rifles and all magazines with capacity above 10 rounds. The court held that both are in common use by millions of law-abiding Americans and fall squarely within Second Amendment protection under the Bruen framework.

The five-judge dissent, led by Judge Patty Shwartz and joined by Judges D. Brooks Smith, Cheryl Ann Krause, and L. Felipe Restrepo, argued that AR-15-style rifles fall outside Second Amendment protection on the basis of what the dissenters characterized as their "disproportionate criminal use, military history, and combat-oriented features." Bearing Arms covered the dissent at length, noting the majority opinion rejected the dangerous-and-unusual carve-out the dissenters relied on. The Hill and Newsweek both reported on the ruling's significance, framing the circuit split as a direct accelerant for Supreme Court review.

The Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, representing more than a million New Jersey gun owners, originally filed the lawsuit in 2022 after the state enacted its current definitions of assault firearms. The ruling creates an explicit circuit split: the First Circuit upheld Massachusetts' assault weapons ban in early 2026, and the Seventh Circuit sustained Illinois' version in a separate ruling, placing the Third Circuit in direct opposition to both. The Supreme Court agreed in June 2026 to hear challenges to Connecticut's and Illinois' semi-automatic rifle bans, and any SCOTUS ruling in those cases will carry direct force throughout the Third Circuit's territory — New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

New Jersey's attorney general is expected to seek an emergency stay in the coming days and may petition the Supreme Court to block enforcement pending review. The ANJRPC and NRA-ILA said they will oppose any stay motion and push for immediate compliance. If no stay is granted, New Jersey dealers and gun owners will be able to lawfully purchase and possess the firearms and magazines the state has banned since 2018. Watch for the state's response within the next 72 to 96 hours.