In 2019, New Jersey strengthened its anti-trafficking laws by making it a crime for a person who is prohibited from possessing a firearm to knowingly solicit, persuade, encourage, or entice a licensed dealer or other person to sell, give, transfer, or assign a firearm to him or her under circumstances which the prohibited person knows would be illegal.¹

New Jersey criminalizes being the leader of a “firearms trafficking network,” prohibiting a person in this role from conspiring with others as an organizer, supervisor, financier or manager, to engage for profit in a scheme or course of conduct to unlawfully manufacture, transport, ship, sell or dispose of any firearm.² A leader of a “firearms trafficking network” is defined as a person who occupies a position of authority or control over other persons in a scheme or organization of illegal gun manufacturing, transporting, shipping or selling and who exercises that authority or control over others involved in the scheme or organization.³

New Jersey penalizes anyone who signs a fictitious name, or gives, or causes someone else to give, false information when acquiring a firearm or any state firearm-related permit or license.⁴

New Jersey also requires that every manufacturer and wholesale dealer of firearms register with the state prior to engaging in the business of, or acting as a manufacturer or wholesale dealer of, or manufacturing or selling at wholesale, any firearm.⁵ Manufacturers and wholesale dealers also must keep detailed records of each firearm sold.⁶

The state also prohibits any person from knowingly transporting, shipping or otherwise bringing into New Jersey any firearm for the purpose of unlawfully selling, transferring, giving, assigning or otherwise disposing of that firearm to another individual.⁷ In addition, New Jersey prohibits the knowing purchase, receipt, disposal or concealment of a defaced firearm.⁸

Finally, New Jersey prohibits the possession, receipt or transfer of a “community gun,” which is defined as a firearm that is transferred among, between or within any association of two or more persons who, while possessing that firearm, engage in criminal activity or use it unlawfully against the person or property of another.⁹

In 2023, New Jersey enacted a law that makes any person who purposely commits any enumerated firearm trafficking violation strictly liable for a death that results from the discharge of the illegally trafficked firearm used in the course of committing the a crime.¹⁰

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1. N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:39-10(a)(5).[↩]
2. N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:39-16.[↩]
3. Id.[↩]
4. N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:39-10c, 10d, 10g.[↩]
5. N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:58-1a.[↩]
6. N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:58-1e.[↩]
7. N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:39-9i.[↩]
8. N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:39-9e.[↩]
9. N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:39-4a(2).[↩]
10. 2023 NJ SB 3150 amending Title 2C of the New Jersey Code.[↩]