March 11, 2021.  In response to grassroots pressure from gun owners, today the NJ Senate Law and Public Safety Committee unanimously amended S568 to address one of the most serious concerns raised by gun owners: using expunged medical records as a basis to deny someone a firearms permit or license.

When a medical professional determines that someone has overcome their issues, a process exists to "expunge," or cleanse, their medical records, which can lead to restoration of firearms rights.  Yet increasingly, the mere fact that someone's record was expunged has been used for the opposite purpose -- to permanently stigmatize a recovered person, override medical judgment, and forever impair their Constitutional right to own firearms. 

As amended today, S568 would prevent this from ever happening again.  It recognizes that expungement of medical records is the culmination of a long and difficult process, and that once it occurs, there is no longer any stigma and the fact that there was an expungement cannot be used against a recovered person.

Gun rights attorney and ANJRPC board member Evan Nappen heralded the result, stating "If enacted into law, this amendment would stop the very real problem of anti-gun bureaucrats abusing the expungement process to deny firearms rights instead of restoring them."