New Jersey is a hostile place for gun owners. The progressive state is a big fan of gun control and continually works to pass more and more restrictive measures, even if those restrictions make no sense at all.

One of its most recent moves was to further restrict the magazine capacity of firearms.

There are a few ways to hold onto your magazines, but the idea is to make it so people will turn them in to authorities.

Well, that’s not happening. Instead, gun owners are getting creative.

As the state’s largest gun group challenges the constitutionality of the law, gun owners have had to get creative with how they abide by the law. Some gun owners have buried their large-capacity magazines in their backyard or behind sheetrock in their garage, said Eric Rebels, a local gun rights activist and owner of GunSitters, a secure firearms storage system company. Others are opting to store them away from their homes. “Thousands and thousands” of large-capacity magazines are stored currently at GunSitters in Whippany, where gun owners have handed over their large-capacity magazines, taking advantage of the storage option as litigation plays out, Rebels said. Some have turned over more than 100 magazines, which are held in a 3,000-square-foot steel vault. … The one thing Rebels said gun owners are not doing is handing their large-capacity magazines over to law enforcement, one of the choices state officials encouraged when the law went into effect. A New Jersey State Police spokesman said not a single large-capacity magazine has been turned in since the law went into effect nearly nine months ago. Residents can also bring them to their local police departments.

Shocking, right?

Now, part of this is because there’s an ongoing lawsuit challenging the magazine restrictions. A lot of people may be holding off on turning in their magazines until the lawsuit is settled. Then they will comply with whatever remains afterward. I’m quite sure that’s what a number of people are intent on doing.

But not everyone.

I’m sorry, but you don’t wall up magazines up in your garage–and I suspect that’s a real-life example that Rebels is aware of and isn’t giving names on–if you think you’re about to win a lawsuit that will permit their ownership again. That suggests they’re bound and determined to hold onto these magazines regardless of the lawsuit’s outcome.

Either that or they really like home improvement projects.

However, the important note is that no one has turned their magazines into the state police, no one at all.

Gun owners tend to be a defiant lot. That’s unsurprising, really, especially in a state like New Jersey that goes out of its way to make owning and carrying a firearm virtually impossible. Owning a gun can feel like an act of defiance against the state.

Only a fool would think that such a defiant bunch would roll over and turn in their magazines simply because the state demands it. In fact, should the lawsuit go against gun owners, expect these fine people to continue to hold onto their magazines regardless.