“It’s a matter of us all working together to ensure the safety and well-being of our families, our neighbors and our co-workers,” Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) pronounced. The occasion: Sweeeny’s Law and Public Safety Committee voted 3 – 1 vote to approve a package of seven gun control laws. “The ‘centerpiece’ bill (S2723) would overhaul the current system of IDs to buy firearms, encoding them onto driver’s license and putting in place a system to allow for instant background checks every time someone buys a gun,” nj.com reports. Wait. Doesn’t the FBI already do that? So is this like the reverse of double secret probation? Also passed . . .
Other bills would create a school security task force (S2724), disqualify those on the federal terrorism watch list from buying guns (S2485), declare violence a “public health crisis” (S2430), establish a 90-day window for people to turn in illegal guns (S2722), establish a school security task force (S2724) and require the state submit records of involuntary mental health commitment to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
Wait. How the hell is New Jersey going to get instant access to the FBI’s Terrorist Watch List? And do Garden State legislators seriously expect residents with “illegal weapons” (i.e. “assault weapons”) to register them and face confiscation?
“If you pass these laws that make me a criminal by not registering my guns, I will not register them,” said gun owner Glenn Darwell of Forked River. “If you make me a criminal I will stand once more and fulfill the constitution. If my blood is in the street it’s in your hands.”
I’ve said it before I’ll say it again: there will be tears before bedtime. Oh and there are ten more bills heading downstream including “banning the .50 caliber Barrett rifle (A3659), toughening penalties for gun trafficking (S2719) and barring state pension funds from investing in companies that manufacture or import assault rifles for civilian use (A3668).”
Not to mention a mag cap limit bill restricting ammunition magazines to 10 rounds. And any other damn thing they can think of.
Needless to say, the bloody shirt wavers were ecstatic (in their own deeply misguided way) at the bills’ progress. Barring a U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down New York’s SAFE Act and New Jersey’s whatever, the Garden State is a lost cause. Tell me I’m wrong.