Ceasefire NJ Celebrates One Handgun a Month Law
(From Freedom States Alliance affiliate CeaseFire New Jersey)
The New Jersey Senate passed Senate bill S-1774, colloquially known as the One Handgun A Month bill, early this morning.
Tom Jardim, Board Chair of Ceasefire NJ, the Garden State’s leading organization devoted to reducing gun violence said: “At 12:15 this morning the Senate took an important step toward making the illegal trafficking of handguns in our state less likely. There can be no doubt that S-1774 is life-saving legislation, intended to reduce the movement of handguns from legal sale at New Jersey gun shops to illegal street sale. These illegal handguns are the ones that fuel gun crime and violence. It is illegal guns that are used to threaten, wound, maim and kill.”
“We especially commend Sponsor Sen Sandra Cunningham, Sen President Richard Codey and Law & Public Safety Chair Sen John Girgenti,” said Jardim, “for moving the bill in the face of withering gun lobby opposition. Governor Corzine and staff also worked hard for passage. And, One Handgun A Month originated with Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, a tireless advocate for public safety. These fine public officials deserve the thanks of all New Jerseyans concerned about the safety or our homes, schools and communities.”
Ceasefire NJ was joined in support of S-1774 by Mayor Healy, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, the NJ County Prosecutors Association, the City Councils of Atlantic City, Jersey City, Camden, Paterson, Passaic and Newark, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the New Jersey Million Mom March
Bryan Miller, Executive Director of Ceasefire NJ said: “Leave it to sensible Garden State legislators to hold the NRA juggernaut at bay by promoting the public safety. The NRA put on quite a show this spring, bringing DC-based lobbyists who tried to confuse legislators and obfuscate the issue. One NRA lobbyist claimed to be a retired ATF supervisor and went so far as to testify in committee that shutting off bulk straw purchases that fuel the illegal handgun trade would somehow be a mistake and make law enforcement’s job more difficult. Imagine, a mistake to seek to reduce the flow of illegal handguns to our streets. More proof the gun lobby is willing to do or say anything, including lie, to seek to protect gun industry profits.”
Jardim asked: “Who needs to buy more than 13 handguns a year? The only people with such need are firearms collectors, exempted from the bill, and criminal entrepreneurs who arrange the movement of handguns from legal bulk sale at gun shops, including in New Jersey, to illegal street sale - to the very people all agree should not have guns. These street customers cannot pass background checks, so need traffickers to supply them illegal handguns. How else would they get guns? S-1774, by severely limiting numbers of handguns sold to individuals, will severely diminish intrastate gun trafficking, and save lives in the bargain.
“It came down to the Senate understanding its duty to mediate between the personal privilege of a tiny minority of NJ handgun extremists and the common good – public safety. Happily, it decided for the latter,” said Jardim. “We anticipate the Governor will sign this critical bill post haste.”
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Ok, we've acceded that firearms collectors have a need to purchase more than 13 guns a year. Very well. Here are some questions about that:
1. What would prevent a person wanting to buy more than one gun a month from becoming a "collector", and still carry on his nefarious activities?
2. What kinds of nefarious activities would the average person be interested in, anyway, that would justify the ban? And how would that justify burdening the GREAT MAJORITY that DO NOT participate in nefarious activities?
3. What kinds of nefarious activities would be stopped by such a ban, anyway?
4. How do you differentiate between the Collector, who likes to collect and trade guns...and the sportsman, who likes to have a wide range of competition guns to choose from...and the hunter, who likes to have a wide range of guns to choose from, too...and the period shooters, who like to have various guns representing different periods (or several, representative of a given period)...and a self-defense person, who likes to have a variety of guns to choose from? In other words, doesn't it follow that a person who is--or becomes--gun enthusiast, is likely a collector as well?
5. When a family is in danger, why should a person be prohibited from buying two guns immediately--one for herself, and one for her spouse? Why limit the purchase to one per month?
They don't. They buy them on a secondary market that operates outside of the law . They steal them. They get them from friends and family. They [criminals] by definition don't obey laws. So how in God's name do the supporters of this bill think it will help mitigate their criminal problems?
Restricting law -abiding citizens is not the way to cure the problem.
And it doesn't matter if I don't NEED 13 guns a year. This is the United States of America, and we have something called freedom, and that freedom applies to me when I want to buy guns.
I don't need the government telling me how many guns a month I can purchase.
One good example I can think of was Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech a couple of years ago. He purchased those guns legally, after a background check and all.
Yeah and then he went to a place where he knew no one was armed to open fire and raise the body count. Gun control at it's finest. Every one knows that a guy this insane would have gotten a gun in any country in the world through legal or illegal means.
The National Highway Safety Administration estimates that in 2006 17,941 deaths were caused by " alcohol related accidents." And many of them were caused by citizens who purchased their cars and alcohol completely legally. So where's the outrage over that?
And let us not forget, of driving and the right to bear arms, only one is guaranteed in the constitution . One is a right. The other is a privilege. The problem is, the right is treated like a privilege and the privilege is treated as a right.
Maybe I'll send a dictionary to these folks and see if that helps. Probably not, since they won't read it anyway.
drinking and driving. That's the thing about this specific law , is that it preempts harm. As soon as a drunk person gets behind the wheel of a car, he's committing a crime . Just like as soon as someone steps foot on a gun-free zone, they're committing a crime.
But now we're getting into the asinine thought that gun-free zones prevent gun violence. It's naive to think this.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Criminals, by definition, break laws. They don't care if somewhere is labeled a "gun-free zone". Gun-free zones are a ludicrous way to deny law -abiding citizens the God-given right to defend their own lives, as well as the lives of others, all in the name of "common sense gun legislation".
one-handgun a month does reduce secondary-market handgun sales.
On what do you base this statement, please just the facts. And even if this is the case, cutting the secondary sales of legally owned firearms is beneficial in what way.
the_car_man
is right here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8637175 .
And this is the series of assertions on this site that I've seen: People who intend to commit a crime using a gun almost always (not 100% of the time) buy their guns from a secondary market--no background checks, no records. Sort of a black market for weapons. Untracable, untrackable handguns sold to people who, for some reason or another, would be ineligible to buy a handgun from a primary source--a gun store--is...bad. That's a bad thing that happens. These people, the law has deemed (and I hope most people agree with me) would not be people who should have firearms due to mental illness, convictions, age, whatever.