New Jersey Lame Duck Session had Naughty, Anti-Gun Christmas Season

During the Christmas season, there’s typically not a lot going on in politics, particularly gun politics. People buy guns, of course, and we talk a bit about that, but for the most part, it’s quiet.

Not ideal if you’re paid to write about stuff involving guns, gun politics, etc., but it kind of goes with the territory. 

As most people were planning out Christmas menus, making New Year’s Eve plans, and the like, New Jersey lawmakers were naughty enough to warrant more than a single lump of coal in their stockings from Santa.

They continued the state’s storied efforts to trample on gun rights.

While many Americans already had visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads, anti-gun New Jersey lawmakers were busy doing the work of their financial enablers in the gun-ban lobby.

During a lame duck session, anti-gunners in the state legislature managed to pass four bills that now only need Democrat Gov. Phil Murphy’s signature to become law.

“These bills do nothing to enhance public safety and are simply another lashing out at the Bruen decision,” NRA’s Institute for Legislative Session (NRA-ILA) said in a December 23 news alert.

The lone Senate measure, S.1425, unjustly punishes firearms dealers who “reasonably should know” if a purchaser is prohibited from owning firearms.

“The measure states: “As used in this paragraph, “‘reasonably should know’ means that a person reasonably should know a fact when, under the circumstances, a person of reasonable prudence and competence would ascertain or know the fact.”

Such a provision is completely unjust and can turn gun sellers into potential felons even if the government has approved the person purchasing the gun.

The problem here is that the NICS check is still performed by licensed dealers, and if that comes back clean, how can you honestly say they should have reasonably known they were actually prohibited? Wouldn’t a clean NICS check be evidence enough that they had no way of reasonably knowing someone was prohibited?

Apparently not.

And that’s just the first of many.

Lawmakers in the General Assembly passed A.4978, which requires the state attorney general to collect data on shootings where no one was hurt. This will most likely be manipulated to increase the number of shootings in the state and to gin up anti-gun outrage. It’s unlikely the breakdown of which shootings are which will be volunteered to the media, and most of the media won’t bother to ask for that breakdown, which is likely the point.

Then we have  A.4975, which criminalizes 3D printer files for firearms and firearm components. That’s likely to get challenged under both First and Second Amendment grounds, since the courts have long argued that computer data is a form of speech.

Plus, they’re printer files. You’re not going to stop the proliferation of those, no matter what you do.

Finally, we have A.4981, which gives courts additional time regarding pretrial release or confinement in cases in which a firearm was used. This would have likely been indefinite confinement had the NRA-ILA not objected during a committee hearing. Instead, we’re looking at seven days, instead.

In other words, the lame duck session went on a rampage and rammed through more than enough for Murphy to sign, and there’s absolutely no chance he doesn’t sign them into law, at least in my mind. I doubt he’s somehow too principled to sign legislation while his time in office is this short.

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