Oct 25 (Reuters) – A federal appeals court on Wednesday sharply questioned whether a recently enacted New Jersey law restricting where people may carry guns was constitutional in light of last year’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that expanded gun rights.

A lawyer for the state urged a three-judge panel of the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rule that a lower-court judge wrongly concluded that the law violated the right to “keep and bear arms” under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.

But judges on the panel questioned whether the law went too far by broadly restricting carrying firearms at 25 categories of “sensitive places” that included parks, schools, libraries, beaches, bars, restaurants with alcohol and casinos.

U.S. Circuit Judge Cheryl Ann Krause noted that the law not only barred carrying guns in various public settings but also prohibited gun owners from having firearms on private property without the property owner’s permission.

“What is there other than leaving your home and walking down the street?” Krause, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama, asked.

The measure was signed into law by Democratic New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy in late 2022 after the conservative-majority Supreme Court in June struck down New York state’s limits on carrying concealed handguns outside the home.

The decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen, established a new legal test for firearms restrictions, saying they must be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” to pass muster, and that states could prohibit firearms in “sensitive places.”

That historical test has led to a series of court rulings striking down federal and state restrictions on firearms as unconstitutional.

New Jersey residents and gun rights groups, including the Firearms Policy Coalition and Second Amendment Foundation sued soon after New Jersey enacted its new law, and U.S. District Judge Renee Marie Bumb, in Camden in May enjoined much of it.

During Wednesday’s arguments, Deputy New Jersey Solicitor General Angela Cai said Bumb wrongly concluded the state’s restrictions lacked historical support, as she pointed to state and local restrictions from the 1700s and 1800s.

But Cai said even if some of the state’s restrictions lacked historical analogues that did not mean the state could not adopt “novel or unprecedented” laws to respond to modern societal problems.

“The choice not to regulate something standing alone is not evidence of constitutional limitation,” she said.

U.S. Circuit Judge David Porter, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump, said his “ears perked up” at her reference to “novel” laws.

“How do you fit that in with history and tradition?” he asked.

Erin Murphy, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the law contradicted Bruen, which “expressly cautioned against defining the category of sensitive places so broadly as to eviscerate the general right to publicly carry arms for self-defense.”

The case is Koons v. Platkin, 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 23-1900.

For the plaintiffs: Peter Patterson of Cooper & Kirk and Erin Murphy of Clement & Murphy

For New Jersey: Angela Cai of the Office of Attorney General of New Jersey