Thirdpower has a little fun at Bryan Miller’s expense. Bryan frequently uses the term “assault gun” to describe that which is illegal in The Garden State. Well, here’s what an assault gun really is. Thirdpower’s version has the howitzer replaced with a Marlin Model 60, which are considered evil assault guns firearms in New Jersey.
Category: New Jersey
Joined ANJRPC
In honor of Bryan Miller, I have decided to become a dues paying member of the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs. Not many people think to join other state associations, but I think it’s important to keep the fight alive in those states. It helps that I’m ten minutes down the road from Trenton if they ever have a rally day like we’re having in Pennsylvania.
Scott Bach Hits Back
Scott Bash, President of The Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, and NRA Board Member, hits back at Bryan Miller on why New Jersey should not be throwing otherwise law abiding gun owners in prison for ten years because they are unknowingly in possession of an assault firearm.
The Myth Continues
Hot on the heels of blaming Pennsylvania for New Jersey’s violence problems, Bryan Miller has decided to turn his attention back to more comfortable pursuits of sticking it to gun owners in his home state.
He continues to peddle the myth that some semi-automatic firearms are more dangerous than other semi-automatic firearms, and pushing to increase penalties for possession in The Garden State:
The enactment of NJ’s Assault Weapons Ban was the subject of enormous public attention, as the gun lobby fought it tooth and nail and subsequently sought to repeal it (remember Governor Florio blowing a watermelon apart?). Claiming ignorance of the illegality of possession of an assault weapon is disingenuous and dangerous.
In fact, any “otherwise law-abiding” assault weapon owner would either have had to obtained his/her gun prior to 1991, purposely avoided the grace period and kept it illegally for 16 years or purchased it out-of-state since 1991 and illegally brought it here. Yet, Bach and his organization believe such illegal, cavalier and menacing behavior merits the equivalent of a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card.
Ridiculous.
Remember what an assault weapons in New Jersey can look like. If you had one of these in your closet for the past 30 years, would you think you were in possession of an illegal weapon that could get you 10 years in the pokey? You’d almost think Bryan thought it audacious that residents of The Garden State were under this mistaken notion they lived in a free country with a right to bear arms provision in its constitution. This isn’t gun nut fantasy. People in New Jersey can and [UPDATE 7/22/2010: What follows was a link that has been removed, due to the anti-blogger frivolous lawsuits prosecuted by Las Vegas Review-Yellow-Journal] have been arrested and jailed for possessing of of these:
[Below is an brief quote that appeared in the Las Vegas Review-Yellow-Journal about the NJ Supreme Court statement that, ‘When it comes to firearms, the citizen acts at his own peril.’ when a New Jersey citizen went to jail for possessing a Marlin Model 60, a common .22 caliber rifle. I have removed the passage because I do not link to or promote rat weasels like the Las Vegas Review-Journal.]
I have to assume that’s just fine by Mr. Miller. One more gun owner in jail where they belong, right? If that’s not really what his sentiment, then he wouldn’t have any problem passing a rimfire exception to the New Jersey ban now would he? Don’t think so? I don’t either.
There Will Always Be a Bridge
Bryan Miller is once again blaming Pennsylvania for crime in New Jersey:
This one-way traffic in illegal guns is even clearer and more damaging in Camden, connected to Philadelphia by two major bridges, as a greater portion of its crime guns come from PA than is the case for the rest of NJ. According to Camden County Acting Prosecutor Joshua Ottenberg, 25% of crime guns recovered in Camden in 2006 came from PA. He said: “Any town that has a bridge is obviously going to feel more of an impact…” So, Delaware River towns, Camden and Trenton, each only a bridge ride away from PA and its vibrant illegal gun market, suffer disproportionately.
New Jersey has effectively extinguished lawful gun ownership. Only about 12% of households owned guns in The Garden State. Only Hawaii, which never had much of a shooting tradition, has a lower percentage of household firearms ownership. Pennsylvania’s household firearms ownership rate is much higher, at 35%. A fairly sizable portion of shooters at my gun club are from New Jersey. They come here, because there just aren’t many places to shoot over on their side of the river anymore. The past several decades has seen range after range, club after club, and gun shop after gun shop, close its doors and fold up, and more and more people chose to either leave the state, or give up gun ownership, rather than face the sea of regulations, and the risk that screwing up could land you very serious time in prison.
There’s very little doubt that criminals will follow the path of least resistance when it comes to acquiring firearms, and it’s easier to smuggle them from other jurisdictions than it is to start making firearms in garages and basements. I don’t dispute this. What I do dispute is that creating restrictive laws elsewhere is going to have an effect on anything other than trafficking patterns. Even if you outlawed them nationwide, there will always be a bridge, and it’s not hard to manufacture firearms to begin with, even in a war zone like Chechnya. The real question isn’t whether gun control affects trafficking patterns, but whether it effects crime, and there’s never been any conclusive evidence that it does. Let’s take a look at crime rates between New Jersey and Pennsylvania:
Traditionally, New Jersey has had a much higher violent crime rate than Pennsylvania, and it’s only been since New York’s revival that New Jersey’s crime rate has dropped significantly. This makes sense, because as much as criminals cross borders to commit the crime of smuggling firearms, they also cross borders to commit violent crimes. New Jersey’s crime would no doubt be even lower if Philadelphia could get its act together, since New Jersey has no large cities of its own. Many of its smaller cities are among the most violent in the nation. Far worse than Philadelphia itself. Bryan can argue all he wants that Pennsylvania needs to “destroy the village in order to save it” in regards to our shooting heritage, but there will always be a bridge. Criminals will find ways to get guns, and it’s not going to do much to lower crime.
Penalty Increase in New Jersey
The State of New Jersey is considering increasing the penalty for possession of an “assault firearm” from a third degree crime to a second degree crime, which carries a penalty of up to ten years in prison and a $150,000 fine. Before anyone in New Jersey suggests “Well, it’s the law and you should obey it!” consider that this is considered an assault firearm in the State of New Jersey:
 
Clearly any New Jersey gun owner who happens to be an unbeknowing lawbreaker, and possesses one of these high powered .22 caliber machines of death, they deserve 10 years in the pokey!
More Fun in New Jersey
It must not be very pleasant to be Jon Corzine right now:
“When everybody laughed when you said that the board would be non-partisan, why do you think everyone laughed?†said Al Dolce, a self-described investor from Freehold. He told Mr. Corzine in Marlboro that his policies had insulted and offended the public “because we’ve been watching you, Jon. Nobody believes you on that! Nobody!â€
The atmosphere has become so volatile that last week the State Police began checking the audience with metal detectors and searching handbags.
The natives are getting restless. It takes people getting pissed off at the status quo before anything will change, though. The status quo in New Jersey is a corrupt and arrogant Democratic machine.
Outside, Mr. Lonegan and his supporters have distributed fliers and hoisted signs, including one depicting Mr. Corzine as a toll booth collector, with the words: “We accept: cash, check, money order, Visa, MasterCard, first mortgage, first-born child.â€
That’s a good one. I’ll have to remember that for when Fast Eddie goes to hike tolls again to pay for Philadelphia’s inefficient mass transit system.
After Mr. Corzine wrapped up his 38-minute presentation, more than 30 people rushed to line up behind two microphones. (And rushed it was, because Mr. Lonegan and Senate Minority Leader Thomas H. Kean Jr. have urged opponents to position themselves as close to the microphones as possible to stack the questions.)
Republicans in New Jersey seem to be learning how to be the opposition. I hope Republicans elsewhere start learning this too.
Pigs Fly in New Jersey
I’ve been a distant observer of the antics of New Jersey Republican and Mayor of Bogota, Steve Lonegan, ever since seeing the movie Anytown USA. I wrote a few weeks ago about his bogus arrest at one of Corzine’s town hall meetings a few weeks ago (charges have since been dropped).
Lonegan has been very successful in New Jersey, which is a very “blue” state, at rallying grass roots opposition to Corzine’s plans, and generally being a pain in his ass. For this, I applaud him, and hope to continue to see rallies like this over in the Garden State:
They chanted “No New Tolls” and “Oink, Oink, Oink,” a reference to the implicit “Pigs will fly over the State House” metaphor Corzine has been using to support his plan to raise tolls and freeze spending instead of his opponents’ calls for just spending cuts.
The loudest moment of the noon protest, however, occurred when several clusters of inflatable pig balloons were released into the air by the protesters.
Former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan was one of the participants in the anti-Corzine rally. Lonegan was arrested last month after protesting at one of the town hall meetings Corzine has been holding throughout the state to pitch his plan, which would generate as much as $40 billion by significantly raising highway tolls and borrowing against the future revenue.
“We are here to deliver a message. That message is: No new tolls,” Lonegan said, prompting the crowd to respond several times with the same refrain.
Lonegan is forcing Corzine to pay attention, and I think he’s going to have to, or he risks going the way of Jim Florio. People in New Jersey are getting pissed, and that’s the first step. Can the New Jersey GOP capitalize on it? If Lonegan’s recent luck with sticking it to Corzine is any indication, the answer might very well be yes.
From Our Side in New Jersey
Scott Bach talks about some of the recent changes in New Jersey that Bryan Miller and CeaseFire New Jersey are suggesting target only criminals:
So what’s the problem, you ask? The problem is that the Garden State’s gun laws are a tangled web of hypertechnical, complex, and frequently incomprehensible regulations that often have the effect of ensnaring otherwise law-abiding citizens and turning them into inadvertent criminals.
New Jersey regulates firearms by banning everything first, and then carving out extremely narrow, limited, and stingy exemptions. Fall outside those exemptions, and you’re considered a criminal, no matter how upstanding a citizen you may otherwise be.
Read the whole thing. This is what the anti-gun folks want to bring to the rest of the country. These are what they consider “reasonable” and necessary gun control laws. Yet Bryan Miller has the audacity to claim:
Why do I care? Not because of any disdain or dislike for hunting or sport shooting. Although I do neither, I don’t oppose either. Hunting is a traditional American pursuit dating back to the first settlers, and I see no reason to seek its demise, as long as it is pursued lawfully and meets the demands of the community in which it occurs. I feel similarly about sport shooting.
Furthermore, hunters and sportsmen are generally not responsible for the unacceptably high rate of gun violence we face in this country, so I have little interest, frankly, in their guns.
If Bryan is sincere in this, would he be willing to agree to re-engineer New Jersey’s gun laws so that they won’t so easily entrap honest sports shooters?  You can bet the answer is no. Bryan cheers Joyce funded studies that show declining gun ownership. If gun ownership is on the decline in New Jersey, which I would bet it is, it’s driven largely by the laws which make owning a firearm for lawful purposes a hazardous legal undertaking. It’s hard to get into the shooting sports in New Jersey without talking to a lawyer, and that’s just fine by the gun control groups there.
Stifling Free Speech in The Garden State
Steve Lonegan, former Mayor of Bogota, New Jersey, and persistent thorn in the side of Governor Corzine, has just been handed a fantastic lawsuit opportunity under Title 42 USC Section 1983, and I do hope he takes the opportunity for the sake of anyone else exercising their constitutional rights in New Jersey.
Steve Lonegan, the former mayor of Bogota who is an outspoken critic of tax and immigration policies, was arrested Saturday afternoon outside a South Jersey high school while protesting Governor Corzine’s toll-hike plan.
Lonegan said in a telephone interview that he was handcuffed while handing out pamphlets a few minutes before the 2 p.m. start of Corzine’s town meeting in Cape May County. Corzine is holding the public events in each of the state’s 21 counties to try to sell his financial proposal.
Arrested outside a public event, on public property, and while peacefully demonstrating would seem to be to be a proper exercise of first amendment rights.
Paul Porreca, a retired Superior Court judge who served in Cape May County and is a member of Lonegan’s group, said he witnessed a verbal altercation between Lonegan, police and a school board administrator over the right of protesters to display placards outside the Middle Township High School. The unidentified administrator claimed the site was not public property and that school board policy prohibited protesting, Porreca said.
Police arrested Lonegan when he refused to get rid of his sign or clear off the property, Porreca said.
Porreca later said “I think it was outrageous. It was a clear abuse of our constitutional rights, our right to assembly, the people’s right to free speech. They were intimidated and, though they were not physically abused, certainly their sensibilities were abused.” I agree.
UPDATE: Not being a first amendment expert, I e-mailed Eugene Volokh to see if he knew whether the state has a case here. He pointed me to U.S. v. Kokinda. That case suggests it would depend on the nature of the property they were arrested on. If it was a public sidewalk outside of the high school, that would be a traditional public forum, where they would be free to protest. A sidewalk owned by the school, leading up to the school, would be a non-public forum, where the school district would be in its right to enforce a blanket prohibition on protesting.