New Jersey Dems Advance Multiple Anti-Gun Measures

The New Jersey Senate’s Law and Public Safety Committee approved nine gun control bills on Thursday, several of which have already been approved by the lower chamber. 

With a host of restrictions already in place, the bills that got the green light from the committee don’t deal with things like so-called assault weapons or even new “sensitive places” where lawful concealed carry is prohibited. Instead, lawmakers are going after everything from Merchant Category Codes to digital code that can be used to build a gun. 

• Increase the penalties for the manufacturing and distributing so-called “ghost guns” and 3D-printed firearms from second-degree to first-degree crimes, specifically buying parts to make a gun without a serial number, making a gun with a 3D printer, making a covert or undetectable firearm and transporting a manufactured gun without a serial number.
• Require businesses that sell guns and ammunition to use the merchant category codes established by the International Organization for Standardization for processing credit, debit, or prepaid transactions.
• Establish criminal penalties for selling or possessing devices designed to convert a weapon into a semiautomatic firearm.
• Make it a crime to possess digital instructions to use a 3D printer to make a gun, firearm receiver, magazine or firearm component.
• Make firing a gun within a hundred yards of certain structures like homes or schools a crime of the fourth degree and any other reckless discharge of a firearm a disorderly persons offense.
• Require the public safety risk assessment used by the Pretrial Services Program to consider a charge, if the act was an unlawful act and not a crime or offense, as risk factors relevant to the risk of failure to appear in court when required and the danger to the community while on pretrial release.
• Require county prosecutors to provide the state’s attorney general with data on crimes involving the use of a gun that did not result in any bodily injury.
• Permit the court system to take additional time to consider pretrial release or pretrial detention when firearm offense is involved.
• Require state’s attorney general to create a ballistics analysis device pilot program and for the chief law enforcement officer of each participating municipality to submit a report to the state’s attorney general within 30 days with a detailed summary of each incident in which the agency used the device and recommends whether the agency should continue to use the device.

NorthJersey.com got one thing wrong in their summary of the anti-gun legislation approved by the Senate committee. S. 3893 would criminalize the sale and possession of “machine gun conversion” devices that can turn semi-automatic firearms into full-auto arms. It does not, however, “establish criminal penalties for selling or possessing devices designed to convert a weapon into a semiautomatic firearm.” 

The paper’s rather innocuous description of the other bills also leaves out some important facts If some of these bills become law, for instance gun owners could be detained indefinitely for even mere possessory charges while a judge considers whether they’re eligible for pre-trial release. 

Yeah, they’re all in favor of women’s reproductive rights. The right to self-defense, not so much. And the path that committee members like Moriarty have chosen is one that’s likely to result in multiple lawsuits. That won’t impact their finances, of course, but New Jersey taxpayers are going to be on the hook for defending these unconstitutional measures if they are signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy. 

New Jersey gun owners have the chance to block the anti-gun agenda of the legislature when they head to their polling place this fall. Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli narrowly lost to Phil Murphy four years ago, and he has a very good shot at winning this year’s race. Every Garden State gun owner needs to start thinking about the upcoming elections and working to elect candidates who’ll respect and protect our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.