New Jersey Brands Gun Industry a ‘Public Nuisance’ in Lawsuits

New Jersey’s attorney general is flexing new state legal muscle in a pair of complaints filed Tuesday seeking damages and injunctions against firearm retailers.

The first suit goes after a retailer that was robbed of about 20 firearms after it displayed “unsecured guns” near a shop window. The other suit alleges gun show companies created a “public nuisance” by helping residents purchase “ghost guns"—guns without serial numbers—at events just across the state’s Pennsylvania border.

“These may be the first two lawsuits filed by the Statewide Affirmative Firearms Enforcement office, but they will not be the last,” Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin (D) said in a news conference. “We’re putting everyone else in the gun industry on notice.”

The lawsuits were the first filed by the state under beefed up restrictions singed by Gov. Phil Murphy last year, but New Jersey’s litigation follows a broader trend of Democratic cities and states pushing an old legal theory into new territory. Cities like Buffalo and Philadelphia, states like New York, and private plaintiffs like those impacted by a mass shooting in Indiana are also claiming guns have become a “public nuisance” and the firearm industry is liable for damages.

Public nuisance is a legal theory that allows a local or state government to act as a plaintiff and sue for broad community harms like pollution. That tool has has been hyper-charged in recent years as plaintiffs successfully sued the opioid industry and the vaping industry, triggering waves of litigation against social media companies for alleged harm to children and firearms retailers for alleged practices that contribute to guns used in crimes.

New Jersey’s key argument is that these retailers contribute to crime. In the first complaint against the brick-and-mortar store FSS Armory, Platkin claims that guns “acquired through theft and burglary directly contribute to the public nuisance of gun crime and gun violence.”

In his second suit against gun show firms Patriot Enterprises Worldwide LLC and Not An LLC (which goes by JSD Supply), Platkin says selling untraceable weapons or weapons kits contributes to the roughly $2 million each non-fatal shooting costs taxpayers, and both companies are “responsible for a substantial share of these costs and for fueling the ongoing public nuisance in New Jersey.”

FSS Armory declined to comment and the other companies didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Settlements have already started to trickle in New York’s similar litigation under that state’s public nuisance law, according to research at Duke University Law School.

The cases are Platkin v. FSS Armory, Inc., N.J. Super. Ct., docket number unavailable, 12/12/23 and Platkin v. Patriot Enterprises Worldwide LLC, N.J. Super. Ct., docket number unavailable, 12/12/23.