New Jersey Lawmakers Have Learned Nothing from Legal Challenges

The state of New Jersey is one of the most hostile states in the nation to the right to keep and bear arms, and they have been so for quite some time. 

They’ve passed numerous gun control laws recently, all of which have been challenged, all while ignoring the racial disparity in issuing concealed carry permits.

If they were to do the right thing, they’d spend time addressing that because while I don’t ascribe to the idea that every disparity in outcome is racist, this one sure does look like it.

However, New Jersey isn’t interested in doing the right thing. They just want to make it harder to be a lawful gun owner, so they’re at it once again, proving they’ve learned nothing.

Legislators will consider eight bills Thursday intended to tighten New Jersey’s firearm restrictions, even though their last batch of gun laws remains in limbo after gun-rights groups challenged them in court.

The Assembly’s judiciary committee will hear testimony on bills, introduced last year by various Democrats, that would establish new crimes for the reckless discharge of a firearm, the possession of digital instructions to 3D-print guns and gun parts, and the possession or sale of a machine gun conversion device, which enables a semiautomatic firearm to shoot multiple shots with one trigger pull.

A fourth bill would add ammunition and gun accessories and components to a gun ban already in place for people convicted of domestic violence and expand the ban to people under a domestic violence restraining order.

Other bills would require the state attorney general to publicly report shootings that do not injure anyone; mandate police training on how to identify machine gun conversion devices; give judges more time in deciding whether to detain someone before their trial for crimes involving guns; and require state police to alert local officers if people prohibited from buying guns and ammunition try to do so.

The Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs isn’t thrilled with many of these. One they’re not fond of is the one regarding “reckless discharge of a firearm,” which seems to be a pretty innocuous bill on the surface. Their concern is that it would enable prosecutors to “second-guess” law-abiding citizens who use a firearm for self-defense.

And New Jersey has enough problems with that as it is.

As for the conversion devices, they’re already prohibited at the federal level, so that’s just a duplication–though I trust New Jersey to somehow make it worse in some way–and it should be noted that if gun control works to keep those convicted of domestic violence disarmed, then there’s no need to prohibit them buying ammo or accessories, much less components for firearms. Plus, these are non-controlled items that can be easily obtained pretty much anywhere else, making the ban pretty meaningless.

As for 3D-print files for guns, now the state is trampling on free speech territory. After all, the courts have found that computer code is a form of speech, which means printer files are also speech. So now they’re screwing with the First and Second Amendments.

Not particularly shocking, but it seems they haven’t learned anything from their recent spankings in court.

Then again, they probably somehow figure that ultimately, they’ll prevail and it won’t matter.

I’d love to see the look on their faces when they turn out to be wrong.