Federal Judge Rules Against New Jersey and In Favor of Retired Officers In LEOSA Case.

Back in 2020, a coalition of retired federal law enforcement officers and the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association sued the state of New Jersey for not honoring their carry rights under the Law Enforcement Officer Safety Act (“LEOSA”). On Tuesday, a federal judge agreed with them and struck two provisions of state law—a retired officer permit requirement and a prohibition on carrying hollow point ammunition—as applied to the officers.

LEOSA allows current and retired qualified officers with identification issued by their agency to carry a concealed firearm nationwide, notwithstanding state and local law. Despite that clear mandate, the garden state held that LEOSA did not provide a path for qualified officers to carry concealed in the state.

After the lawsuit was filed, New Jersey tried to have it dismissed. NRA-ILA and the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs filed an amicus brief in support of the officers. New Jersey then withdrew its motion to dismiss the case and changed its LEOSA policies on its website.  

But that wasn’t enough for the judge, who held that a non-binding policy change did not resolve the case: “the Court finds that LEOSA preempts the Permit Scheme and prohibition on hollow point ammunition as-applied to Plaintiffs and QRLEOs who already have ‘identification’ …. [T]he Court hereby declares that [those restrictions] violate[] the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.”

The Case is captioned Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association v. Grewal.  

Please stay tuned to www.nraila.org for future updates on this and all of ILA’s efforts to defend your constitutional rights.