NEW ATTORNEY GENERAL
TRIES TO KILL ANJRPC LAWSUIT
One Gun a Month Litigation Update
Just one day after
being sworn in, the newly appointed state
Attorney General took the most aggressive legal
posture available to defend former Governor
Corzine's one-gun-a-month handgun rationing law,
moving to dismiss ANJRPC's lawsuit to overturn
the law, and later vigorously opposing ANJRPC's
motion for a preliminary injunction in the
case. The U.S. District Court could hear
argument on these motions as soon as April.
This is the first
indication of the new Attorney General's posture
on the firearms issue. Despite the unanimous
opposition of Senate republicans and several
prominent democrats when this legislation was
rammed through by one vote in the middle of the
night last June, the Attorney General has chosen
to aggressively defend the largely ineffective
law, which can be easily thwarted by criminals
and fails to punish criminal behavior, but which
clearly tramples the rights of honest citizens.
The legislation fails to address known sources
of illegal gun trafficking, like the Fedex gun
theft ring that stole hundreds of handguns from
legal shipments in 2008 and distributed them
illegally on the streets of Jersey City and
Newark.
"We will spare no
effort or resource to overturn this thinly
disguised attempt to ration the Constitutional
rights of law abiding citizens," said ANJRPC
President Scott Bach. "It is unfortunate that
our public officials in Trenton have squandered
an opportunity to distance themselves from the
Corzine administration's blatant attack on gun
rights and have instead rallied to defend it."
ANJRPC's complaint
in the lawsuit was filed in January (copy
available here).
The Association moved for a preliminary
injunction blocking enforcement of the law last
month (copy of legal brief available
here).
The Attorney General's opposing briefs are
available here
and
here.
Please watch for further alerts and updates.
Here's something to think about:
According to the U.S. Census Bureau's estimates for 2008 NJ has
2.84% of the total US population. The latest estimates from the FBI,
based upon the increased number of NICS checks for firearms
purchases, is there are now 90 million gun owners
in the US. Assuming all of the gun owners are evenly distributed throughout the population
then NJ’s 2.84% would amount to 2,556,000 gun owners living
in NJ.
And as one must be 18 or older to purchase a gun in NJ, all of them
are also eligible to vote.
Here's something else to think about:
On September 12, 2009 something
over 1 million* ordinary citizens held a march in Washington, D.C. to
protest the excesses of our Federal Government. That's over a
million citizens who, without a political party, without a major
organization, and substantially on their own personal initiative
traveled from all over the country just to express their insistence
that their alleged representatives had better stop violating the
Constitutional limits placed upon the government or else those
representatives would be held accountable for their egregious
behavior.
And that's only the million who were available to
travel to the city that day. How many others feel the same way but
weren't able to attend?
*The
Park Service has an office which estimates the size of crowds by
looking at aerial photographs, compares those to prior events, and
estimates the crowd. That office says it was 1.2 to 1.6 million
See Volunteers’
Gallery for photos of our volunteers in action. Click
Here
to volunteer.
“[T]he
Constitution is not a living organism. It’s a legal document.” —Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia
“Gun
advocates favor freedom, choice and self-responsibility. If someone
wishes to be prepared to defend himself, he should be free to do so.”
—John Stossel
"You do realize that a criminal does
look to make sure there are no cops around before he attacks you,
right? Remember that old saying about there's never a cop around
when you need one? Well that's the reason. You will ALWAYS be on
your own if you are attacked. The cops will be there later, after
the criminal has finished." - S. Potts, Personal Protection
Instructor
