Vern Evans
A New Jersey attorney is suing Springfield Township, its police department and a host of others in federal district court, alleging his Second Amendment rights were violated when he was denied a concealed carry permit due to pro-Palestinian social media posts.
Rajeh Saadeh received his original permit in 2022 and applied for renewal in August 2024. Police, however, denied the renewal, citing pro-Hamas social media posts they found “concerning,” an action that Lindsay A. McKillop, Saadeh’s attorney and associate at his Bridgewater-based law firm, describes as “baseless and unconstitutional” in the complaint filed on December 17 in the U.S. District Court for New Jersey.
In addition to arguing an infringement of Saadeh’s Constitutional right to bear arms, the complaint alleges violations of due process, stating the denial was issued without a hearing or interview, free speech, the equal protection clause and federal and state anti-discrimination laws based on race, national origin and ancestry.
Respondents include Springfield Township, its police department, Police Chief John Cook, Detective Lt. James Mirabile, the New Jersey State Police and Patrick Callahan, its superintendent.
According to New Jersey law, concealed carry permits may be denied if an individual has been convicted of domestic violence, is subject to an arrest warrant or restraining order or has violated one in the past, has been diagnosed with a drug dependency, mental disorder, physical limitation or disease, has a juvenile record of disqualifying offenses, provided false information in a permit application or if it “would not be in the interest of the public health, safety or welfare because the person is found to be lacking the essential character of temperament necessary to be entrusted with a firearm.”
Gun laws in New Jersey are among the strictest in the nation, but according to data from the Attorney General’s Office, fewer than 1% of applications for concealed carry permits have been denied in nearly five years, only 332 of the total 53,036 permit applications in that period.
Open Public Records Act documents obtained by Saadeh state that the basis for his denial was public interest, health, safety and welfare concerns, finding him lacking the essential character of temperament, as he shared thousands of articles and commentary on social media appearing to glorify violence against the Israeli Defense Forces, including support for Hamas. Detective Mirabile, in his review of the application, noted that certain posts “could be construed as antisemitic.”
Of course, Saadeh can’t see anything wrong or potentially concerning regarding his support for a terrorist organization currently holding both American and Israeli hostages, accusing police of racism and discrimination against him because he is a Palestinian American. His attorney claims Saadeh is exercising his right “to share evidence and information dispelling the lies and myths about the genocide and showing Palestinian efforts to stop it.” Oh sure, Lindsay, you mean like the approximately 380 Israeli civilians slaughtered while attending the Nova Music Festival or the rest of the almost 1200 murdered on October 7, 2023, many of whom were victims of coordinated home invasions?
“What Zionists and their apologists want to make up about Mr. Saadeh is not his concern … What matters is that his Constitutionally protected rights to free speech and to bear arms are not violated, especially on account of his identity. That’s what the government did, and that’s what this lawsuit intends to fix,” says McKillop, an Islamic extremism sympathizer and apologist.
Bill Sack, director of Legal Affairs for the Second Amendment Foundation, a friend whose opinion I respect immensely, notes that the 2022 United States Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen found the ability to carry a pistol in public is a Constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment.
“The recent Bruen Supreme Court decision expressly dispensed with as unconstitutional the type of unilateral, subjective metrics for the receipt of a carry permit as New Jersey insists on continuing to implement … To add insult to Constitutional injury, and only dig themselves into a deeper Constitutional hole, it now appears that New Jersey may be expressly denying carry permits on the grounds of protected political speech … If that is in fact the case, the State is only adding First Amendment violations to its Second Amendment violations, and further highlighting the exact reason why SCOTUS has already decided that such unilateral and subjective gatekeeping cannot be allowed to stand between peaceable people and their fundamental rights,” said Sack in addressing the case.
For the Second Amendment community, this topic will undoubtedly receive mixed responses, and I encourage people to take a measured approach to the debate as valid points can be made on both sides of the argument. From a purely Constitutional perspective, the Second Amendment clearly recognizes the right to keep and bear arms without exception to criminal record, mental health or any other provision. If this is a position you support for all Americans, no matter what crimes they may be guilty of or what risks they might pose to the community, then certainly Saadeh’s complaint will find validation in your eyes. If the fact that Hamas is a terrorist organization currently holding American and Israeli hostages, calling for the murder of all Jewish people (see the original 1988 charter, not the sanitized politically corrected 2017 version), and promoting death to America strikes you as concerning enough to flag its supporters as prohibited individuals, I see your side also.
There is an “in-between,” however, and I think Bill Sack aptly demonstrates a measured position on the matter. Felonies and domestic violence constitute a clearly defined metric through pleadings and conviction by a jury of peers. I do have contrary thoughts regarding the nature of how many restraining orders are obtained and the standards by which they are, in fact, used to violate Americans’ Constitutional rights. In the case of determining the public interest, health and safety based on a person’s essential character of temperament, this is where we invite the subjectivity that Sack refers to, which can ebb and flow with the political tide or the personal opinion of an evaluator, promoting an ever-shifting and unstable foundation in which any law-abiding citizen may become ensnared.
As an American who hopes to always live up to the name, I dislike Rajeh Saadeh and what he stands for and find the comments from his attorney repulsive. I condemn Hamas without exception, as I would any person who takes innocent life for political, ideological or any other gain aside from self-preservation in that moment. Ultimately, I must agree with Bill Sack, the Second Amendment Foundation and the U.S. Supreme Court Bruen decision, striking down unilateral and subjective metrics for determining access to Constitutionally protected rights. I can not support the United States Constitution for some and not for all, lest my devotion be insincere.
Read the full article here