New Jersey’s Epic Gun-Control Failure ~ Letters to the Editor

New Jersey, USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Gun crime is up 36% in New Jersey over the past year. How could that possibly be?

After all, Governor Murphy and his band of techno ignorant gun-hating Democrats passed a pile of new restrictions almost immediately after his inauguration. They’d like to blame it on Covid, the catch-all excuse for the laundry list of failed legislation in the state, but that’s a big stretch for the imagination.

My wife was a New Jersey Senior Probation Officer for almost 30 years. She routinely made weapons and drug searches in the homes of felons under house arrest, she was alone, unarmed, all 105 lbs. of her.

Although she had her own firearms and was proficient in their use, people in her position are not allowed to carry firearms. If for some reason she could not make the appointment, it would be performed by two police officers, armed, with ballistic vests. Why the discrimination?

This is just one example of the thousands of asinine New Jersey gun control laws concocted by ignorant (stupid would be a more accurate term) politicians.

Concealed carry by permit or Constitutional right is available in 42 states. New Jersey, with some of the highest violent crime rates in the United States, is NOT one of them.

Armed carjackings are epidemic. In New Jersey, police and a select few special citizens have concealed carry permits. Criminals have Constitutional carry and know the risk of armed confrontation is low.

New Jersey falsely states that gun-related crime is low in the state, that claim a lie. Any probation officer will tell you that criminals arrested with a firearm are allowed to plea bargain down. Since that penalty is severe, liberal prosecutors and judges give the usual repeat offender a break. If you’re a white-collar worker, they’ll throw the book at you.

A few years after I retired, I received an email from work. One of my best friends at work, another scientist, lost his son, an engineer, and his future daughter-in-law in a carjacking. The criminal didn’t need a high-capacity magazine, just two shots at point-blank range. When I called my friend E. M., to express my condolences, he told me the shooter was out on bail for another murder!?

In a short period of time, the suspected felon was able to obtain a handgun, no permit, no background check, and no waiting period. Odds are he paid less than 25 cents on a dollar for the gun, standard black market rate.

Pay attention here, There is no such thing as a gun control law that negatively affects criminal behavior. Gun control only harms law-abiding citizens. You have to be a special kind of stupid to think a murderer is going to be concerned if he has a “high-capacity” magazine.

During the last 20 years prior to the pandemic, the number of states issuing concealed carry permits has increased and during the same period, violent crime has dropped dramatically.

Gun ownership has steadily increased over the same period. We hear so much about mass shootings but not about that they mostly took place in “gun-free zones”. Another special kind of stupid legislation. The media also shuns the many stories where a potential mass shooting was averted by an armed citizen or when an armed citizen aids a police officer in jeopardy. Most gun crime is performed with the standard 9mm handgun, not an “assault” weapon. Another misnomer. In fact, more murders are done with hands, feet, or blunt objects than those by all rifles and shotguns combined.

In part due to the pandemic, gun sales increased even more than normal. There was a 66% increase in 2020 over 2019 with record numbers of first-time buyers. Sales have already surpassed that number in 2021 over 2020. It’s obvious, people want their Second Amendment right and their representatives are oath-bound to respect that. So much for the value of their word.

There are over 1 million gun owners in New Jersey. Usually, only 1.1 million citizens vote in a gubernatorial election. That means a lot of those gun owners aren’t enthused enough to vote in expectation of reform.

I was born in New Jersey in 1947. In grammar school, I could wear my father’s WWII military knife to class, no problem. I attended high school from 1961 to 1965. We brought our shotguns, rifles, and ammo to school and kept them in our lockers. I took the bus to school with a shotgun, no gun case. My friends and I, as early as age 10, carried rifles and shotguns openly almost anywhere on our way to go target shooting or hunting, even into the department store to buy ammo. Things were a lot safer then and we didn’t even have a local police department. Go figure.

In conclusion, our Constitutional rights have been stolen by despots and need to be restored.  Magazine restrictions, gun variety bans, etc. are equally unconstitutional. Seems much of the crop of current federal judges have no more credibility in constitutional law than your abusive third-world dictator.

John Wrobleski
Green Township, New Jersey