New Jersey sues Las Vegas gun dealer over high-capacity magazine sales to undercover agent

The state is suing a Las Vegas gun dealer for allegedly selling six high-capacity magazines — including a 100-round drum magazine for an AR-15 — to an undercover investigator despite knowing the transactions were illegal, the Attorney General's Office said Wednesday. 

Gurbir Grewal, the attorney general, filed the three-count complaint this week in state Superior Court in Newark. In it, Grewal alleged the Nevada-based New Frontier Armory broke New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act and violated state regulations on illegal products when it sold outlawed magazines of 15, 30 and 100 rounds to state investigators twice in the last 10 months.

On both occasions, investigators bought the banned magazines through the company’s website and picked them up at a New Jersey mailing address, according to the complaint. Grewal sent a cease-and-desist letter between the purchases demanding that the company stop marketing, selling and shipping the products to New Jersey residents. The company acknowledged the letter but apparently disregarded it, leading to the lawsuit.

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"We intend to hold New Frontier Armory — and any other companies who engage in similar conduct — fully accountable," Grewal said at a Wednesday news conference in Trenton. "With today's action, we're once again showing this industry, across the country, that we're not afraid to use our civil enforcement authority and all the tools at our disposal." 

The state wants New Frontier to immediately stop selling high-capacity magazines to New Jersey residents and give up the money it made through the illegal sales. It is also seeking civil penalties of $10,000 per violation and $20,000 for each subsequent violation.

"We're going to hit them where it hurts, which is their pocketbooks," Grewal said. 

Judge Jodi Lee of Essex County Superior Court on Wednesday ordered New Frontier to temporarily stop selling high-capacity magazines to New Jersey customers. New Frontier cannot sell the magazines on its website or anywhere else to people in the state. The next court date on the matter is scheduled for July 15. 

Grewal also wants the company to post a statement on its website telling shoppers that possession of high-capacity magazines is a fourth-degree crime in New Jersey. And he wants New Frontier to hand over five years’ worth of information about which residents bought illegal magazines.

A New Frontier employee who answered the phone Wednesday declined to comment.

New Jersey outlawed magazines of more than 15 rounds about three decades ago. Last summer, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a package of gun control laws that dropped that limit to 10, tightening the state's already-strict firearms rules. 

The regulations, taken together, represented a largely Democratic response to a string of high-profile mass shootings that shook the nation in recent years.

The move opens another front in the state’s battle to stem the tide of illegal firearms and accessories flooding New Jersey. Last week, Grewal announced that authorities had, for the first time, charged four suspects with breaking a seven-month-old ban on new-age firearms called “ghost guns,” which manufacturers specifically engineer to skirt regulations and evade detection.

And in March, Grewal sued the founder of a California-based ghost gun company that he said markets the firearms to residents despite the state’s ban.

New Frontier describes itself on its website as a 10-year-old full-service firearms and weapons dealer. The company first sold three illegal 30-round magazines to state investigators last summer, spurring Grewal’s letter, according to the complaint.

The attorney general's investigation found that 27 of the 30 magazines for sale on New Frontier's website hold more than 10 rounds. But the site does not mention the state law banning the products, officials said. 

Email: janoski@northjersey.com