Principles-Based Sensitive-Places Doctrine: Third Circuit Upholds Most Location Bans, Invalidates Insurance Mandate and Private-Property Default in Koons v. Attorney General of New Jersey

Introduction

This precedential Third Circuit decision addresses a sweeping post-Bruen challenge to New Jersey’s 2022 carry law, Chapter 131, which replaced the State’s “justifiable need” regime with new permitting rules and a broad catalog of “sensitive places.” Two consolidated plaintiff groups—the Koons Plaintiffs and the Siegel Plaintiffs—sued the Attorney General and State Police Superintendent, later joined by legislative intervenors, seeking to enjoin numerous provisions under the Second Amendment.

Against the backdrop of District of Columbia v. Heller, McDonald v. City of Chicago, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, and United States v. Rahimi, the Third Circuit adopts and applies a principles-forward method of analogical reasoning. It largely upholds New Jersey’s sensitive-places designations but strikes down (or directs preliminary injunction against) several significant non-locational restrictions, most notably the State’s liability insurance mandate and its “no-carry unless consented” default rule on private property held open to the public. The Court also draws a sharp constitutional distinction between carrying in private vehicles (protected) and on public transit (more regulable).

Summary of the Opinion

• Methodology: The Court embraces a principles-based Bruen/Rahimi approach—courts must look to the “how” and “why” of historical analogues to distill regulatory principles, not demand “historical twins.” It treats postenactment history (particularly Reconstruction-era sources) as probative where consistent with the founding-era understanding and long-running traditions, while rejecting an unbounded “state-as-proprietor” exception.
• Key holdings on provisions:
  • Liability insurance mandate (§ 2C:58-4.3): Likely unconstitutional; preliminarily enjoined. Surety and strict-liability analogues do not justify an ex ante universal insurance requirement.
  • Permit fee earmark for Victims of Crime Compensation Office (§ 2C:58-4(c), $50): Not a permissible cost-recovery fee; remanded with instructions to preliminarily enjoin.
  • Four-reputable-persons endorsements (§ 2C:58-4(b)): Upheld as consistent with the historical principle of disarming/deterring dangerous would-be carriers and with “suitable person” regimes referenced in Bruen. As-applied challenges remain available if used discriminatorily.
  • Private property default rule (§ 2C:58-4.6(a)(24)): Likely unconstitutional as applied to private property held open to the public; injunction affirmed. Property owners may still opt out of carry by express notice/signage.
  • Public gatherings within 100 feet of permitted events (§ 2C:58-4.6(a)(6)): Upheld (Reconstruction-era public-assembly analogues and centuries-old protection of deliberation and civic processes).
  • Parks, beaches, recreation facilities, zoos, playgrounds, youth sports (§ 2C:58-4.6(a)(9)–(11)): Upheld (long line of regulation of parks and places of recreation/assembly; playgrounds and youth sports also fit within school-adjacent and child-focused protections).
  • Public libraries and museums (§ 2C:58-4.6(a)(12)): Upheld (educational/cultural venues analogous to historically regulated institutions of learning and places frequented by children).
  • Bars and places serving alcohol (§ 2C:58-4.6(a)(15)): Upheld (historical limits on intoxicated persons and weapons in tavern-like spaces).
  • Entertainment facilities (§ 2C:58-4.6(a)(17)): Upheld (analogues in ballrooms, fairs, theatres, shows—discrete, crowded venues).
  • Casinos and related facilities (§ 2C:58-4.6(a)(18)): Upheld (places of amusement + alcohol analogues support regulation).
  • Healthcare facilities (§ 2C:58-4.6(a)(21)): Upheld (medical settings analogized to historic disarmament at military hospitals; education/scientific settings; presence of vulnerable populations).
  • Public film and TV sets (§ 2C:58-4.6(a)(23)): Vacated for lack of standing (sets are temporarily private; plaintiffs alleged only a desire to carry while watching filming from public areas).
  • Vehicle transport (§ 2C:58-4.6(b)(1)):
    • Private vehicles: The ban on carrying operable firearms conflicts with historical travel exceptions; injunction affirmed as to private vehicles (and the related fish and game regulation, N.J.A.C. § 7:25-5.23(f)(5)).
    • Public transit: Regulation upheld; analogues restricting firearms conduct on/around trains and common carriers justify carry restrictions on mass transit; injunction reversed.
  • Fish and game regulations: Most challenges are moot due to statutory changes allowing concealed-carry of handguns while hunting; remaining transport-in-vehicle rule as above.
• Preliminary injunction factors: The Court finds irreparable harm (and balances equities) for four categories: the private-vehicle carry ban, the private-property default rule (public-facing property), the VCCO fee, and the insurance mandate. No sufficient showing for most other provisions.
• Dissent (Porter, J.): Would invalidate far more of Chapter 131, accusing the majority of analogizing “far too broadly,” over-relying on late-19th-century sources, and creating a capacious “civic purposes” principle that swallows the right to carry.

Analysis

Precedents Cited and How They Shaped the Outcome

• Heller and McDonald: Recognized an individual right to keep and bear arms, “not unlimited,” and endorsed “longstanding” sensitive-place bans (e.g., schools, government buildings). The Third Circuit reads Heller as setting limits but not cabining analogical development.
• Bruen: Rejects means-end scrutiny; requires the government to show that modern regulations are consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition. Offers a flexible analogical inquiry keyed to the “how” and “why”. Warns against defining sensitive places so broadly as to eviscerate public carry.
• Rahimi: Clarifies that courts should identify and apply “principles underlying the Second Amendment” and “regulatory tradition,” not demand “dead ringers.” Validates disarmament where an individual poses a credible threat, using surety/affray law as sources of principle. The Third Circuit uses Rahimi to justify principle-based analogies (e.g., civic deliberation spaces; places of amusement; vulnerable populations; alcohol-related risk; education/science settings).
• Sister Circuits: The Court aligns with the Second (Antonyuk v. James) and Ninth (Wolford v. Lopez) Circuits in upholding many sensitive-place designations (parks, bars, entertainment venues, public gatherings). It diverges from the Ninth Circuit on a key threshold point—rejecting a “state-as-proprietor” shortcut that would exempt government-owned property from Bruen analysis.
• Third Circuit En Banc/Panel Cases: The Court’s own recent decisions (Range; Lara II; Quailes; Harris; Moore; Veasley) inform how to treat postenactment history (probative, but with caution), approve limited independent historical research, and underscore Rahimi’s principle-driven structure.

Legal Reasoning: The Court’s Principles-First Approach

Rather than matching each modern law to a “twin” or anchoring solely in a single era, the Third Circuit distills two overarching principles from the historical record:

1. Location-specific carry limits serve discrete civic functions or governmental operations. This includes places set aside for governmental deliberation/administration and analogous forums where the presence of arms historically threatened peace, deliberation, or physical safety—e.g., legislative assemblies, polling places, courts, fairs, markets, later extending to organized public assemblies, theatres, and parks.
2. Conditions on carry designed to ensure safe use: The tradition supports ex ante measures to deter misuse (e.g., surety laws) and targeted disarmament of dangerous or intoxicated individuals. That principle also supports limits in locations where risks are heightened (e.g., bars; crowded, enclosed entertainment venues; and places with vulnerable populations, like hospitals and—by analogy—schools/libraries).

Through this lens, the Court evaluates each modern location and rule for the how (means and scope of burden) and why (purpose or risk addressed) against the tradition. This produces a clear pattern: discrete, function-specific places and crowded, bounded venues of amusement or civic gathering often passed historical muster; generalized bans or universal ex ante burdens on all carriers typically did not.

Applications to Key Provisions

• Insurance Mandate: Surety laws were individualized, time-limited, and triggered by a complaint or finding of threat; strict-liability rules were ex post. A universal, perpetual ex ante insurance condition to carry is different in kind. The State did not carry its burden.
• VCCO Fee: Borrowing from First Amendment fee law (Cox/Murdock), the Court holds permit fees must be tied to administrative costs or public order caused by the licensed activity. A $50 earmark for a general victims fund fails that test.
• Four Reputable Persons: The requirement fits within the long-recognized tradition of filtering out dangerous or irresponsible carriers (surety/affray). It resembles “suitable person” standards cited approvingly in Bruen. Discriminatory or abusive administration remains vulnerable to as-applied challenges.
• Private Property Default: Historically, legislatures regulated armed trespass and poaching on private lands, often requiring consent—but those analogues targeted non-public lands (e.g., plantations, enclosed estates). Extending a categorical no-carry default to all private property open to the public flips the longstanding public-facing default and lacks a relevantly similar tradition; owners can still opt out by notice.
• Public Gatherings: The Court finds robust Reconstruction-era analogues barring arms at public assemblies, reinforced by older protections for deliberative fora (parliaments, polling places, courts) and markets/fairs.
• Parks, Beaches, Recreation, Zoos: While “modern parks” arose later, the principle is continuous: legislatures historically limited arms in crowded venues of recreation and communal life, and courts did not doubt their constitutionality. The Court collects substantial 19th-century municipal/state ordinances and statutes (e.g., Central Park rules) and extends the civic-functions rationale.
• Libraries and Museums: Regulated as educational/cultural analogues to schools and universities, frequently patronized by children, within a tradition recognizing these as sensitive places.
• Bars and Alcohol: The tradition treated intoxication as a disqualifier and limited weapons in places serving alcohol. Together, these analogues justify locational bans in on-premises alcohol establishments.
• Entertainment Venues: Ballrooms, theatres, circuses, and fairs are longstanding analogues: discrete, enclosed, crowded spaces where arms posed elevated risks and vexed public order.
• Casinos: Modern casinos are novel, but they are places of amusement with on-premises alcohol—squarely within the dual tradition. The State’s showing satisfies the “relevantly similar” test.
• Healthcare Facilities: The Court identifies a strong practice of disarming entrants to military hospitals (accepting arms at intake) during the Founding and the Civil War. Together with education/science analogues and the principle of protecting vulnerable populations, this supports bans at modern hospitals and related care facilities.
• Film and TV Sets: The case narrows on standing. Because sets are temporarily privatized and not open to the public, plaintiffs—seeking to carry as members of the public observing filming—failed to show a credible threat of enforcement against conduct they can undertake.
• Vehicles:
  • Private Vehicles: Founding/Reconstruction regimes widely exempted travelers; the State’s analogues either exempted travelers or addressed different risks (e.g., firing at trains). Carry in private vehicles remains protected; the State’s unload-and-lock rule is likely unconstitutional as applied to private vehicles.
  • Public Transit: Railroads and common carriers historically restricted firearms conduct (e.g., prohibitions on firing/brandishing onboard; carrier rules limiting guns in passenger cars). Taken together, those analogues justify regulation on public transit today.

Standing, Mootness, and Party-Presentation

• Standing: The Court follows Antonyuk’s reasoning to find standing for a pre-enforcement challenge to onerous licensing steps (four-reputable-persons), but not to film-set restrictions where plaintiffs failed to show a credible threat against conduct they could actually engage in (observation from public areas only).
• Mootness: Statutory changes allowing lawful handgun carry while hunting rendered most hunting-related challenges moot; the remaining vehicle-transport regulation (case-fastening) rises and falls with the private-vehicle analysis.
• Independent Research: The Court confirms it may (though need not) consult historical materials beyond the parties’ submissions, consistent with Bruen.

The Dissent

Judge Porter would enjoin far more of Chapter 131. He argues the majority:

• Analogizes “far too broadly,” creating sweeping principles (“civic purposes”) that enable bans “wherever people typically congregate.”
• Over-relies on late-19th-century enactments, many outside the founding consensus; discounts the paucity of Founding/early-19th-century sensitive-place laws.
• Misreads the Statute of Northampton lineage and inflates the evidence from municipal/territorial regulations.
• Performs an “elastic” inquiry that risks diluting Bruen/Rahimi into a common-law policy tradition rather than a constitutional limit.

The majority, in turn, emphasizes Rahimi’s principled analogical reasoning, the long arc of locational regulation around discrete civic/recreation venues, and cautions against any approach that would “eviscerate” public carry writ large.

Impact and Practical Takeaways

What governments may still do (in the Third Circuit)

• Designate as sensitive: parks, beaches, recreation facilities, zoos, playgrounds, youth sports events and other discrete, bounded places of communal recreation.
• Regulate public gatherings and demonstrations (e.g., 100-foot buffer for permitted events), public libraries and museums, bars and places serving alcohol, entertainment facilities (theatres, arenas, stadiums), casinos and their appurtenant venues, and healthcare facilities.
• Impose objective, safety-oriented licensing conditions consistent with historical principles (e.g., background checks, references/reputable-person attestations), mindful of potential as-applied equal-protection hazards.
• Regulate carry on public transit (grounded in carriers’ historical regulation of firearms conduct onboard).

What governments may not do

• Impose universal, ex ante financial burdens disconnected from historical practice, such as a mandatory liability insurance requirement as a condition of carry.
• Divert permit fees to non-administrative funds (e.g., general victims’ compensation) untethered to permitting costs or order-maintenance.
• Flip the default for private property held open to the public to “no carry unless consented.” Owners remain free to opt out through express notice or signage.
• Forbid carry in private vehicles by requiring unloading and locking; historical travel exceptions protect carry by travelers in their private conveyances.

For permit applicants and property owners

• Applicants: Expect the four-reputable-persons endorsement to stand. Applicants uncomfortable with that requirement can challenge as applied if local officials use it discriminatorily.
• Businesses and property owners: You retain authority to restrict firearms on your premises, but the State cannot declare a blanket no-carry default for venues open to the public. Use clear posted signage/express consent to set your policy.
• Carriers: You may carry in your private vehicle (subject to other valid laws) but should expect restrictions on buses/trains/subways; plan accordingly when shifting between modalities (e.g., parking-and-riding).

Litigation and policy landscape

• The opinion consolidates a consensus with the Second and Ninth Circuits on many sensitive-place categories, but splits with the Ninth on the state-as-proprietor theory. This may invite future Supreme Court guidance.
• States drafting post-Bruen statutes should:
  • Build detailed records connecting modern locations to the “how and why” of historic analogues.
  • Favor discrete, bounded places tied to civic deliberation, education/science, recreation/amusement (especially with children or alcohol), or vulnerable populations.
  • Avoid global financial preconditions and default bans that flip longstanding access rules.

Complex Concepts Simplified

• Bruen test: Step 1—Does the Second Amendment’s text cover the conduct? If yes, Step 2 requires the government to show the regulation is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition, using analogical reasoning about the how (means/scope) and why (purpose) of regulation.
• Principles vs. “twins”: Courts don’t need identical historical laws; they must identify principles that underpinned historical regulations and assess whether modern laws are “relevantly similar.”
• Sensitive places: Not a limitless category; historically included legislative assemblies, courts, polling places; can extend by analogy to discrete fora where arms threatened civic peace or safety (e.g., theatres, fairgrounds, parks).
• Surety laws: Historical measures requiring individuals credibly accused of threatening violence to post bond conditioned on peaceable conduct—not universal preconditions on all carriers.
• State-as-proprietor: The notion a State can bypass the Constitution when it acts like a property owner. The Third Circuit rejects any categorical carveout; government property restrictions still must pass the Bruen test.
• Standing and mootness: Pre-enforcement challenges require a credible threat of enforcement against the plaintiff’s intended conduct. Statutory changes can render claims moot.
• Preliminary injunction: Requires likely success on the merits and irreparable harm, plus a balance of equities and the public interest favoring relief. Here, irreparable harm was found for private vehicles, private-property default rule (public-facing), VCCO fee, and insurance.

Conclusion

Koons cements a principles-based sensitive-places framework in the Third Circuit, threading the needle that Bruen and Rahimi laid out: modern regulations need not be “trapped in amber,” but they must faithfully reflect the why and how of a longstanding American tradition. Applying that method, the Court upholds robust—but discrete—location-based limits (parks, libraries/museums, entertainment venues, bars, casinos, healthcare facilities, public gatherings), rejects a “state-as-proprietor” shortcut, and draws bright lines against universal financial preconditions (insurance mandate; non-administrative permit fees) and default no-carry rules on public-facing private property. Most notably, it reaffirms the traveler’s protection by invalidating restrictions on carry in private vehicles while allowing public-transit regulation rooted in historical analogues.

The decision offers a durable blueprint for legislatures and courts: tether modern designations to discrete civic functions, crowded bounded venues, education/science, alcohol-related risks, and vulnerable populations, while rejecting measures that broadly burden all carriers without firm historical footing. As sensitive-places litigation continues nationwide, Koons will be a leading marker for how to do Bruen/Rahimi analogical reasoning—anchored in principles, not “twins.”