A snippet of how hard it is to get CCW in NJ

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Judge denies gun permit for Sussex County pet supply store owner who was mistakenly kidnapped | NJ.com


A Sussex County pet supply store owner, who was the mistaken-identity victim of a kidnapping by five Missouri men, today lost his second attempt to get a permit to carry a handgun.
Superior Court Judge David Ironson, sitting in Morristown, rejected an appeal filed by Jeffrey Muller of Frankford, owner of J&G Pet Foods in Newton, who sought to overturn last year’s decision by another judge in Morristown, Philip Maenza.
Echoing Maenza, Ironson said Muller, 61, failed to provide “proof of justifiable need” to carry a handgun and said he should take his case to a state appeals court. Muller is also pursuing a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Newark that seeks to overturn the decision.
In an interview after the hearing, Muller said he needs to carry a handgun because “there’s the potential” of the five kidnappers’ family members “coming after me to get revenge.”
Authorities said the five Missouri men abducted Muller on Jan. 8, 2010 from his store in Newton, believing he was another Jeffrey Muller, a New York money broker. Four of the men were allegedly trying to help suspect Roy Slates recover $500,000 he had lost to the other Muller in a failed golf course development deal in Utah. Muller escaped from his captors after their car broke down in Lake Ozark, Mo.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

• Missouri man admits conspiring to commit theft in mistaken Newton kidnapping
• Fifth Missouri man is arrested in kidnapping of Newton pet store owner
• Authorities searching for missing Newton pet store owner
• Newton pet store owner kidnapped, taken to Missouri at gunpoint
• Family of Newton pet shop owner copes with accidental kidnapping
• Missouri man is charged with leading role in abduction, beating of Newton businessman
Slates has been released from prison after pleading guilty and has returned to Missouri, while the other four suspects are being held as they await trial in Sussex County, according to Muller’s attorney, David Jensen.
“They could send anybody out after me,” Muller said, noting that “the way we live has changed” since the ordeal. “Everything’s locked,” he said.
“I think about it every day,” Muller said. “I look at everybody who comes in my store.”
“Someone was walking in the woods the other day and it startled my wife,” Muller said.
During the court hearing, Jensen said he pursued the appeal because Maenza didn’t hold a formal hearing and because the state police had approved Muller’s permit to carry a handgun, which normally would prove persuasive to a judge.
Afterwards, Jensen said he will continue to pursue the federal lawsuit but hasn’t decided if he will take the case to the New Jersey appeals court.
In the earlier decision, Maenza said there was "no justifiable need” for Muller to carry a handgun, because his kidnappers had been apprehended and “there is no longer a threat of serious bodily harm.”

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Oregon did away with the "justifiable need" about 1988, if I recall correctly. Up until then, it was fairly easy to get one in the rural counties, but in the urban counties in the Willamette Valley, it was almost impossible. The first year it was changed, there were something like 5,000 applications just in the Portland area.