The majority of Americans care about passing firearms safety laws like universal background checks and increasingly want to elect candidates who will champion lifesaving legislation to reduce gun violence and make them a priority—not gun lobby profits.
As New Jersey’s firearm laws face their most significant judicial upheaval in decades, the long record of Republican Congressman Tom Kean Jr. on gun policy is drawing renewed scrutiny — from his years blocking state-level reforms in Trenton to his votes in Washington against measures that advocates call commonsense gun safety.
Kean, who represented New Jersey’s 21st legislative district in the state Senate before winning election to Congress in 2022, built a record that gun violence prevention groups describe as aligned with the firearms lobby at nearly every turn.
Now, with federal courts striking down or modifying some of New Jersey’s toughest gun restrictions, the contrast between Kean’s legislative history and the rapidly changing legal environment has become a flashpoint in his reelection campaign.
A Record of Opposition in Trenton
Kean’s opposition to stricter gun laws predates his time in Congress.
In 2013, in the immediate aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre — when 20 children and six educators were killed in Newtown, Connecticut — Kean stalled an overhaul of New Jersey’s firearm background check system for weeks by refusing to supply Republican votes needed to advance the legislation.
The bill would have created a new electronic system for instant background checks and mandated background checks for private gun sales.
The procedural blockade drew sharp criticism at the time. Then-Senate President Steve Sweeney retaliated by removing all GOP-sponsored bills from the legislative agenda, including measures to boost Superstorm Sandy recovery and close a hazardous landfill near schools. A letter to the editor published in June 2013 accused Kean of “playing politics with gun bills”.
Kean’s record on mental health and firearms also drew scrutiny. He cast the deciding vote against overriding Gov. Chris Christie’s veto of a bill that would have required law enforcement to be notified if a gun buyer sought to expunge mental health records. The bill, S2360, had passed both chambers unanimously — 39-0 in the Senate and 74-0 in the Assembly — before Christie conditionally vetoed it. When lawmakers attempted an override in September 2015, the Senate fell two votes short. Kean was among the Republicans who decided not to support the override, saying afterward that he preferred a broader, bipartisan compromise.
“It’s remarkable how they can just turn their backs on the people of the state,” Sweeney said at the time. “God forbid someone who has a mental health issue has their record expunged and gets a gun and kills somebody. How do you live with yourself?”
Kean also voted three times against requiring firearm retailers to sell personalized handguns — weapons incorporating technology to prevent use by unauthorized users, sometimes called “child-proof guns” — votes that advocates say could prevent shootings by children and criminals.
He voted twice against reducing the maximum capacity of ammunition magazines to 10 rounds, opposing legislation designated A2006 that would have imposed the limit.
During his two decades in the New Jersey Legislature, Kean served as the Senate Minority Leader, where his positions largely aligned with conservative approaches to the Second Amendment, earning him an A+ rating from the NRA in 2017.
Kean’s alignment with gun rights interests was reflected in his ratings from the National Rifle Association. In 2003, he received an “F” rating from the NRA. By 2017, he had earned an “A+” rating and was an endorsed candidate. In 2020, the NRA Victory Fund gave him a “B” rating.
The Federal Record
Kean’s opposition to gun regulations continued after his election to Congress.
In 2022, when the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — the most significant federal gun violence prevention legislation in nearly three decades — was under consideration, Kean remained silent on how he would vote, and advocacy groups said his silence made clear he would have voted “no”.
The bill ultimately passed the Senate 65-33 with 14 Republican votes, but Kean has not been recorded as supporting it.
The digital ad, titled “Less Safe,” accuses Kean of siding with “the powerful gun lobby” in Washington.
“Here at home, Tom Kean claims to be tough on crime,” the narrator says. “But when he’s in Washington, Kean sides with the powerful gun lobby — voting to weaken gun laws, which gives criminals and domestic abusers easier access to guns. Kean even voted to cut millions from law enforcement — making it harder for them to fight crime in our neighborhoods.”
Emma Brown, executive director of GIFFORDS PAC, said: “New Jerseyans just want to feel safe, but Tom Kean sides with the powerful gun lobby to make it easier for dangerous people, like domestic abusers, to access guns.”
Kean’s Democratic challenger, Rebecca Bennett, has been recognized as a Moms Demand Action Gun Sense candidate.
A Changing Legal Landscape
The context for this debate has shifted dramatically in recent months. In July 2026, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that New Jersey’s assault weapons law — barring possession of semiautomatic rifles like AR-15s and large capacity magazines containing more than 10 rounds of ammunition — is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. The 10-5 en banc decision marked the first time a federal appeals court had found that a state’s assault weapons ban violated the Second Amendment.
The ruling came in lawsuits filed by gun rights groups who argued that New Jersey’s law could no longer stand after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which held that modern gun restrictions must be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”.
Circuit Judge Arianna Freeman wrote for the majority: “The Supreme Court’s recent Second Amendment rulings teach that bans or broad prohibitions on possessing or carrying of a class of weapons in common use for lawful purposes fail to find support in our Nation’s tradition of firearm regulation. That is so even when the regulations are passed with the intention of reducing gun violence.”
A lower-court judge in 2024 had delivered a mixed ruling, holding New Jersey’s 1990 ban on AR-15 rifles unconstitutional but allowing the large-capacity magazine prohibition to stand. The 3rd Circuit went further, declaring the ban on all types of semi-automatic rifles — not just AR-15s — unconstitutional, as well as the magazine ban.
The decision drew immediate condemnation from New Jersey officials. Gov. Mikie Sherrill called it “dangerous, wrong, and make no mistake, it will make New Jersey communities less safe.” She noted that the state’s “commonsense gun safety laws have saved lives and protected communities — and shootings have declined for the last three years.”
Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said the state was “thrilled” when the Third Circuit subsequently granted a stay of its ruling while New Jersey’s petition to the U.S. Supreme Court proceeds. The Supreme Court has already agreed to review rulings upholding similar assault weapons bans in Cook County, Illinois, and Connecticut.
The Broader Congressional Picture
At the federal level, Congress has remained largely gridlocked on gun policy, even as the courts reshape the landscape. The 119th Congress has seen a flurry of competing proposals:
- Background Check Expansion Act (S. 3214), introduced in November 2025, would require a background check for every firearm sale.
- Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2025 (H.R. 3868) seeks to strengthen background check procedures before a federal firearms licensee transfers a firearm.
- Assault Weapons Ban of 2025, reintroduced by Sen. Dick Durbin and colleagues, would ban the sale, transfer, manufacture, and import of military-style assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and other high-capacity ammunition feeding devices.
- Gun Violence Prevention Research Act of 2025 (S. 2514) would authorize appropriations for the CDC to conduct research on firearms safety and gun violence prevention.
On the other side, Republicans have introduced bills to repeal firearm-related provisions of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (H.R. 6035), establish a “National Constitutional Carry Act” (H.R. 645) to enforce Second Amendment rights against the states, and prohibit the President and the Secretary of Health and Human Services from declaring emergencies for the purpose of imposing gun control (H.R. 2039).
None of the major gun safety proposals has received a floor vote in the Republican-controlled House, and Kean has not co-sponsored any of them.
The Political Stakes
Kean is seeking a third term in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District against Democrat Rebecca Bennett, a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot. The district is a key battleground for control of the House: Donald Trump won NJ-7 by one point in 2024, while Mikie Sherrill carried it by two points in the governor’s race.
The GIFFORDS PAC ad targeting Kean is part of a broader effort by gun violence prevention groups to make the issue salient in suburban swing districts. The ad focuses on swing voters — primarily women — on digital platforms including YouTube and connected television.
For his part, Kean has emphasized a different message. A recent advertisement features his father, former Gov. Tom Kean Sr., stumping for his son, while the congressman touts priorities including “gun control reform” among other issues. But his legislative record tells a different story — one of consistent opposition to the very measures that gun safety advocates say are needed to prevent the next Sandy Hook, the next mass shooting, the next preventable death.
As the courts dismantle New Jersey’s gun laws piece by piece, and as Congress remains paralyzed, the question for voters in the 7th District is whether Kean’s record matches his rhetoric — or whether, as his critics charge, he has spent his career standing with the gun lobby while claiming to stand with New Jersey families.
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