The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
The winners of the second round of the Federal “Race to the Top” contest turned out to be:
New Jersey missed out on Ohio’s slot by 3 points of 500.
Governor Chris Christie, the wunderkind of the New Jersey GOP, hit a major pothole this past week. New Jersey’s application for the Race to the Top federal education money failed by a handful of points to get NJ into the program. The proximate cause – as trumpeted by his political opponents – was a “clerical error” that had wrong numbers in a critical part of the application. The end result – New Jersey failed to make the minimum number of point to qualify by 3 points out of 500 or so. At first, the governor blamed Washington and the Dept of Education. The DoE then turned around and released a video of the NJ team’s conference that contradicted Governor Christie’s version of events. Claiming that the NJ Education Secretary had mislead him, the Governor then sacked Secretary Bret Schundler. Bret Schundler is now claiming that he told Governor Christie the truth and that he had the emails to prove it. In the meantime, the NJ Democratically-controlled legislature is making political hay after having been battered and bruised by Gov. Christie for most of the year. And the story’s not over yet…
Will this matter in the long run, though? The governor’s lost a major fight already; the property tax cap battle ended with his desired goal, a referendum on a hard 2.5% cap placed in the NJ Constitution, unattained. Instead, a loophole-riddled compromise law was enacted (municipalities may not increase property taxes more than 2.0%, save in “emergencies”, which include servicing debt…) On the other hand, one of the reasons that former-Governor John Corzine lost was that he was widely viewed as indecisive and unable to stand up to the Trenton special interest mobs. Governor Christie has famously claimed he’s governing as though he’s going to be a one-term governor, and has yet to flinch from a conflict. I doubt he’s going to back down from this one, either. In the end, New Jersey’s schools are a local concern, not a statewide concern. The NJEA may have made Chris Christie their #1 enemy, but they’re only one of his many targets. And by sacking Schundler, Gov. Christie is demonstrating he’s not going to put up with incompetence on his own team. Finally, he can come out fighting against the NJEA. Their intransigence on reform cost many more points on the application than the “clerical error” cost.
Plus, Gov. Christie’s team has demonstrated a command of new media usually found on the other side. In NJ, it’s the Democrats that are the dinosaurs. Christie is an amazing spontaneous speaker, and his powerful speeches, statements, and events pop up on Youtube almost before he’s done speaking. He has a knack for making his opponents looks like whiners. His opponents depend on control of the legacy media, and Christie is bypassing the gatekeepers (which is another reason they hate him).
Normally, New Jersey politics is, at best, a spectator sport for the parts of NY and PA that have TV and radio stations that serve NJ as well. But in this case, Governor Christie’s name has been brought up as a potential presidential contender in 2012. So, for those of you out there in the Lands of the More Free, what do you think? Is this playing in Peoria, and if so, how’s it being spun?
Edit:Â This was for the second round of funding, and the actual winners can be found here
Hello out there in internet land. I’m Ian Argent, and I’ve been asked to guest-blog here while Sebastian and Bitter are enjoying some fun in the sun. First, some True Facts:
I was born below the Mason-Dixon line and lived in various exotic locales, being raised by globe-trotting, gun-owning hippies on an literary diet mostly composed of Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, WWII history books, and NOW propaganda. I’ll leave y’all to guess which had the most influence on me… I’m now an armed and conservative resident of The Great Garden State of New Jersey, and can be found arguing for the fun of it on message boards and comment sections across the internet.
In the next couple of weeks, I hope to entertain, inform, and find some sacred cows and try my hand at cow-tipping…
A judge in New Jersey rules that blind people have Second Amendment rights too.
UPDATE: Clearing out my tabs, it seems I forgot how this story was put together. Now let me do it the right way:
A blind gun collector is in Court defending his Second Amendment rights. It looks like this guy has made the news before, when he won his appeal of his FID denial for being blind back in 1994, and once again in 2004 after they tried to revoke him because of a conviction unrelated to firearms possession (being unruly in a bar). Now they apparently want to revoke him because he was the victim of a burglary while he was in the hospital after shooting himself, and while in the hospital was the victim of a burglary.
You don’t have Second Amendment rights in the Garden State, despite McDonald. The time will soon come to put the smack down on this nonsense. Maybe it would be a wise things for Mr. Hopler to give up his hobby, but that should be his choice, not the states.
An attorney that works with ANJRPC currently has an Op-Ed in North Jersey media market that suggests why the Garden State’s gun laws are unconstitutional:
As it turns out, New Jersey gun law offers fertile ground for challenge, not merely because the state has such strict laws but because New Jersey law is exceedingly aggressive toward the law-abiding gun owner.
New Jersey’s regulatory scheme is highly unusual in that it approaches gun control by categorically banning guns and then carving out extremely limited exceptions to the prohibitions.
Read the whole thing. New Jersey’s gun laws are designed to frustrate the exercise of the right by making it exceedingly legally hazardous to own and transport firearms. Despite anti-gunners claims to the contrary, it’s hard to see how it’s constitutional to start out with the default assumption that all guns are banned.
UPDATE: More here.
Someone in New Jersey I guess had finally had enough of these flying grass to poop conversion factories. Only in the Garden State would this be considered a heinous crime, rather than a public service.
Cemetery got pulled over on the way back from a match. In a normal state, this would go something like “Why yes, Officer, I do have firearms in the vehicle. They are locked security in the back, except for the loaded Glock in the glove box.” A few minutes later, you’d probably be on your way. But Cemetery did the right thing for Jersey, which is to shut up. I find his telling of the story hilarious, however:
But when I met up with my friend, I was still Cowboy’d Up cause she likes the clothes, I realized I stunk of sulfur, from shooting black magic. Makes me wonder if that’s what the Officer was smelling.
I’ll have to remember next I get pulled over after shooting black magic, that if I’m asked what that funky smell is, I’ll just say that I’ve been eating a bunch of chili. I think that will end the nosey business might quick.
Sounds like the right tactic to me.
Found by Cemetery at New Jersey Hunter forum. Some gems from Bryan:
“These single-minded and fearful people care so little about public safety that they seek to make our state and country an armed camp. And, it is no coincidence that many follow the harsh anti-democratic rhetoric that attracted such as Tim McVeigh.”
“We have all heard of the volatile blend of racism and anti-government hostility emanating from so-called ‘tea parties.’ Mixed in is a rebellious strain of pro-gun extremism that led to yesterday’s events. In many state, ‘open carry’ activists eagerly wear their guns to Starbucks and other retail establishments, caring not a whit about the intimidation of and danger to others. It’s all about them and their petty fears and anti-social ideas.”
We’re the ones that use fears and anti-social ideas? Pot — meet kettle. This is classic fundraising through fear mongering. Both sides do it, but they like to pretend they don’t. And it doesn’t hurt, I guess in Bryan’s world, to throw in a side of arsehole with your big plate of hysteria.
A long time New Jersey Assemblyman, who was one of the co-sponsors of the Florio assault weapons ban back in the 90s, apparently loves the Children a bit too much.
Shamelessly pilfered from Cemetery.