California gun owners are staring down the barrel of new gun control laws. The measures will do nothing to decrease violent crime and much to make owning a firearm more expensive, difficult and dangerous. As this post-Newtown push for civilian disarmament (under the guise of public safety) reaches its inevitable conclusion, more than a few members of TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia have written-off Golden State gun owners. Bad move . . .
It’s best (if that’s the right word) to think of gun control as a cancer. It doesn’t stop until it destroys its host. Truth be told, gun control advocates will never, ever be satisfied. They will continue to nibble away at civilian gun ownership until it’s gone. At that point, bad things happen.
Nazi Germany. Stalinist Russia. Rwanda. I’m not saying that California politicians are driving down the road to mass murder only . . . they are. A disarmed society is a totalitarian society.
To those blind to history or current events, the dots connecting “common sense” gun control and the end of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness may seem worlds apart from each other. But there they aren’t. And there stand California Democrats, Sharpies in hand, ready to make their mark.
But it’s not just California. The People of the Gun were caught on the hop in Colorado when urban Democrats got a post-Newtown hard-on for “high capacity” ammunition magazines. And even as the gun control cancer spreads, fed by the blood of innocents, it gathers strength – make that virulence – in the states where it breeds. States like New Jersey.
Under New Jersey law, Robert Leonardis is exactly the kind of person who never should own a gun. And the .45-caliber handgun police say he fired, nearly killing a Hackensack police officer, never should have wound up in the state.
Leonardis is a member of the Sex, Money, Murder set of the Bloods gang with a long criminal record, according to police. On July 22 he allegedly opened fire on three Hackensack police officers, missing Officer Joseph Ayoubi by inches.
Like most guns used for crimes in New Jersey, the handgun Leonardis used was trafficked illegally from another state, police say. His gun was mailed from Florida via UPS, said Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli.
At this point in northjersey.com’s editorial, anyone with an ounce of “common sense” would conclude that A) the Garden State has a gang problem B) the gun control laws designed to keep firearms out of the hands of vicious criminals are an abject failure and maybe C) someone in law enforcement should get a warrant to search packages overnighted to known gang members.
All of which, of course, has nothing to do with the editorialists’ anti-gun agenda.
New Jersey’s gun laws have long been and remain among the toughest in the nation. But almost every day, New Jersey residents are shot and killed in gun crimes. Statistics indicate that the vast majority of those cases involve guns purchased in other states and transported to New Jersey illegally.
Of more than 2,000 guns used in New Jersey crimes that were traced to their state of origin, fully 80 percent originated elsewhere, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). More than half — 55 percent — were imported from just seven states: Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida and Ohio, all of which have weaker gun-control laws than New Jersey.
See what they did there? “But almost every day New Jersey residents are shot and killed.” Not gang members fighting for turf. Not innocent lives caught in the crossfire of gangs fighting for turf. “New Jersey residents.”
As Saul Alinsky wrote in Rules for Radicals, “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Especially when you misrepresent the “thing” to suit your political agenda.
Anyway, even the most cursory analysis of the stats provided raises some important questions. For example, the editorial board says that the ATF traced “more than 2000 guns used in New Jersey crimes.” What was the total population of guns confiscated by the police? How many guns weren’t traced to their state of origin?
Maybe NJ gang bangers file off the gun’s serial numbers. Or the NJ police don’t call the feds every time they find a gun. Maybe the stats have been manipulated for political purposes like, say, the Mexican gun confiscation numbers the ATF uses to cover-up the fact that drug cartels are killing people with firearms sold to the Mexican police and military, funded by the U.S. government.
Or maybe it doesn’t matter.
The writers would have you believe that stronger gun control laws in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida and Ohio would choke off the supply of guns to New Jersey criminals. A better world would ensue. But if those states had “tougher” gun control laws, limiting citizens’ access to defensive firearms, what would happen to their violent crime rate? Perhaps armed citizens keep the crime rate down.
Regardless of the practicality of the matter, New Jersey Democrats want every single state in the United States to follow its example and infringe on Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. As do California Dems. And Colorado Dems. And Texas Dems. And Dems throughout the entire United States. And they’re more than happy to torture facts until they scream in surrender to further their goal.
“The state of Florida has lenient gun laws and only requires a driver’s license for the sale of a gun,” Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said in announcing the arrest of three people who helped smuggle the gun police say Leonardis used. . .
Gun laws in Florida, the source of Robert Leonardis’ handgun, are even looser, according to a Law Center analysis. Florida gun dealers need not be licensed with the state, and Florida has no laws regarding the sale or possession of assault rifles or large-capacity ammunition magazines.
The result, gun-law experts say, is that career criminals can buy guns from states where laws are weakest and where buying a gun is easy and cheap.
See what the Bergen County Prosecutor did there? His comment implies that there’s no federal background check for new gun purchases in Florida. It also assumes that the more hurdles there are to legal gun sales the safer New Jersey citizens will be. At the same time, the editorialist points to laws regarding “assault rifles” and “large capacity” magazines—which have nothing to do with gang banger Robert Leonardis’ case in specific or New Jersey crime in general.
While I can’t dispute the fact that criminals buy guns where they can, again, this “fact” has to be balanced against a more important consideration: New Jersey residents can’t buy guns to defend themselves against the guns that criminals buy. Not easily. Not cheaply. And they sure as hell can’t get a permit to carry one (forget easily or cheaply).
Credit where credit’s due: northjersey.com’s writers insert an island of reason—two short paragraphs—in their sea of carefully calculated misdirection.
Supporters of gun rights counter that safety isn’t a matter of which states have the toughest gun laws. Rather, it all depends on how many citizens have guns.
“Why pass new laws? Just enforce the laws we already have,” said Frank Jack Fiamingo, president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society. “You know what scares criminals more than anything else? It’s the armed citizen.”
I like to think the truth is a clarion call. I know we hear it. But we shouldn’t turn our backs on the deaf no matter where they live. Our voices must be heard lest they be silenced forever.