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The National Rifle Association is supporting a Sussex County man's lawsuit challenging the restrictions on carrying handguns outside the home, the group announced this week.

(George Frey/Getty)

FREDON — The National Rifle Association is supporting a Sussex County man's lawsuit seeking a permit to carry his handgun outside of his house, the organization announced this week.

The national lobbying group said it was backing John Drake's lawsuit with a forthcoming amicus brief, in support of Second-Amendment rights in New Jersey, the organization said. Drake, and other plaintiffs involved in the lawsuit, petitioned last month to have their case heard in the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Law-abiding citizens have a constitutional right to defend themselve beyond their front doorstep,” said Chris W. Cox, the executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action.

Drake, of Fredon, is a business owner who owns and services ATMs – and who carries large amounts of cash, he said in an interview this morning. The suit challenges New Jersey law requiring "justifiable need" to acquire concealed-carry permits, he said.

"It seems unreasonable to me to have to wait until you're beaten up or shot at to get a permit," Drake said.

The lawsuit was initially filed in 2010 by Jeffrey Muller, a Newton pet-store owner who was beaten and kidnapped in a bizarre case of apparent mistaken identity.

Muller was subsequently issued a permit in 2011, and withdrew from the case, which underwent several name changes as plaintiffs and defendants changed, even as the argument has remained the same.

Also joining the suit is the New Jersey Second Amendment Foundation and the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, Drake said.

Cox, the NRA official, said it would file an amicus brief on behalf of Drake. The group is challenging New Jersey’s legal stance on the Second Amendment, Cox added.

“New Jersey law unconstitutionally forces lawful gun owners to prove ‘justifiable need’ in order to carry a handgun for self-defense, showing specific threats, or prior attacks. This is absurd," Cox said. "Our fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms is not limited to the home."

Bryan Miller, the executive director of Heeding God's Call, a faith-based gun-control group, said he wasn't concerned with the U.S. Supreme Court changing the Garden State gun laws.

"We're not concerned - this suit is doomed from the start, based on recent Supreme Court rulings," Miller said this afternoon. "We're happy to have the NRA waste their money on this."

A separate lawsuit filed by a Manalapan businessman filed last year is still awaiting oral argument before the state Supreme Court, said the man's attorney, Evan Nappen. It will be the first time in nearly a half-century that the state has revisited its own gun-control laws, the lawyer said.

"It's going to be interesting to see how New Jersey weighs in for the first time in 45 years," Nappen said.

New Jersey's highest court ruled in 1968 that only citizen militias - and not individuals - have Second-Amendment rights in the state.

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