In security, we have a name for a control that technically exists but nobody can get through: a denial of service. The door is there. The lock is there. The badge reader is there. It just never turns green. Nobody had to say no. They only had to keep you waiting.
That’s the question the federal government is now asking about one township in Camden County.
What Happened
On October 14, the Justice Department announced that it had opened an investigation “to determine whether Pennsauken, New Jersey deprives citizens of their right to bear arms through egregious and unjust delays in issuing firearm licenses.” The probe focuses on the Pennsauken Township Police Department’s permitting system, and it’s being run by the Civil Rights Division through its Second Amendment Section.
“Our investigation aims to discover if allegations of unconstitutional delays in firearm permitting are true, and if so, to fix it,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon.
Read that again. Civil Rights Division. Second Amendment Section. Those are words I did not expect to see together in a federal press release in my lifetime.
Note what has and hasn’t happened. This is an investigation, not a finding. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, both DOJ and the township declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation. The township says its process typically takes four to six weeks if nothing comes up in the interview. Nobody has proven anything yet, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
Footnote Nine Grows Teeth
DOJ’s legal hook is a single sentence from New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen (2022). Most people remember Bruen for killing New York’s “proper cause” requirement. Fewer remember footnote 9, where the Court reassured the 43 “shall-issue” states that their licensing regimes weren’t automatically suspect, and then added a warning:
“That said, because any permitting scheme can be put toward abusive ends, we do not rule out constitutional challenges to shall-issue regimes where, for example, lengthy wait times in processing license applications or exorbitant fees deny ordinary citizens their right to public carry.” (Bruen, slip op.)
For four years, that sentence was mostly a shield litigants tried to raise in court. DOJ is now using it as a sword. Its release says flatly that “it is a violation of the Second Amendment for government officials to delay issuing permits to purchase or carry firearms.”
I’d put that a little more carefully than DOJ does. Footnote 9 says the Court doesn’t rule out challenges; it doesn’t say every delay is unconstitutional. But the principle is sound, and any security person will recognize it: a control is judged by what it does in production, not by what the policy document says.
New Jersey Already Wrote the SLA
Here’s the part I find most interesting. New Jersey didn’t leave the timeline to anyone’s imagination. Under N.J.S.A. 2C:58-3(f), once the licensing authority determines an application is complete, it “shall grant the permit or the identification card... within 30 days from the date of receipt of the completed application for residents of this State,” and within 45 days for nonresidents. The same statute says no conditions may be added “other than those that are specifically set forth in this chapter.”
So the state set a 30-day service level agreement for a handgun purchase permit or a Firearms Purchaser ID card, and handed delivery to local police departments. Notice the clock starts at “complete.” Anyone who has ever run a help desk knows exactly where the gaming happens: the ticket isn’t “open” until someone decides it is.
Pennsauken has been here before. In 2024, a resident named Christian Benton, joined by the Coalition of New Jersey Firearm Owners, Gun Owners of America and the Gun Owners Foundation, sued the state’s Attorney General and Pennsauken’s police chief over the “lengthy and arduous” permit process, according to the Inquirer. A federal judge dismissed the delay claims last year for “lack of constitutional injury,” because the plaintiffs had all eventually received their permits. The one-gun-a-month challenge continues.
Think about that logic. You got your permit, so the wait didn’t hurt you. By that standard no delay short of forever is ever injury. That’s precisely the gap a pattern-or-practice investigation can reach and an individual lawsuit can’t.
The Federalism Problem, Both Directions
I’ve written about federalism here before. In “Consent of the Governed”, I looked at what happens when states reject the compact. In “A Passport for the Second Amendment”, I argued we’d never tolerate state-line restrictions on speech or religion, and shouldn’t on firearms either.
This case cuts in an uncomfortable direction for some of my friends. Many of us cheer when a state tells Washington to pound sand. Now Washington is leaning on a township. Is that federal overreach?
No. Federalism was never a promise that states and towns get to do whatever they want. It’s a division of power with a floor underneath it, and the Fourteenth Amendment is that floor. A constitutional right administered by a local police department is still a constitutional right. If the township’s clock is honest, it has nothing to fear from the audit.
And if it isn’t? Then a delay is just a denial that doesn’t have to explain itself. A denial at least comes with a written statement of reasons and a hearing in Superior Court, which the statute provides. A wait comes with nothing. That’s not a bug for someone who doesn’t like the right. It’s the feature.
Watch the Rest of the Docket
This doesn’t stand alone. Duke’s Center for Firearms Law SCOTUS Gun Watch shows Beckwith v. Frey, a challenge to Maine’s multi-day waiting period for buyers who’ve already passed a background check, listed for the Court’s October 16 conference. On October 13 the Court denied Williams v. Illinois, which asked how footnote 9 applies to criminal penalties under a shall-issue regime. Time as a regulatory tool is very much on the table.
The Bottom Line
I don’t know yet whether Pennsauken has been slow-walking applications. Neither does DOJ; that’s what the investigation is for. But I know the principle: a right deferred indefinitely is a right denied, and a 30-day statute is a promise, not a suggestion.
Audit the clock. Then we’ll know.
Light a cigar. Pour a dram. Read the footnotes.
#SecondAmendment #2A #Bruen #Federalism #CivilRights #SecurityNCigars
I think it would be equally reasonable to grant every woman an authorization to an abortion. The authorization should be opened by the state upon proof of pregnancy, and must be granted within two years. That should placate the feminists, right?