Author’s Note:
The following letter (in a shorter version) was mailed to The Trenton Times on Christmas Eve 2002, coincidentally in keeping with another blow struck for freedom in Trenton on that date exactly 226 years ago. It was meant as a rebuttal to their editorial singing the praises of the legislative muck called the “Smart Gun” bill. It was never printed.

Dear Editor:

The 12/16 issue of your newspaper contained an article by Michael Jennings reporting the prior day’s state Senate action on the so-called “smart-gun” bill. This latest demonstration of indifference to reason, fact, law, and most importantly “Freedom” took place in an atmosphere of extreme malice toward the lawful gun-owning community, This new law passed basically, (as was repeatedly stated), because Assemblywoman Loretta Weinberg D-37) deserved its passage because her unsuccessful campaign of haggling and haunting is now a long “six” years old.

In the article Senator Peter Inverso (R-Hamilton) is portrayed as an innocent dupe of the organized opposition to this latest assault on NJ’s inclusion in the Bill of Rights. Foremost among that organized opposition is the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, Inc.

The good Senator had courageously but vainly fought to have that Association (ANJRPC) and its members, and the firearms they use in competitive shooting excluded from Ms. Weinberg’s bill in an amendment. The Assembly refused. The Assembly, under her prodding now refused Senator Inverso’s appeal to honor her “six” years of repeated assurance of: …“but were not trying to take any guns away from sportsmen/women.” Though I can’t find the quote, she said something to the effect of “…why would we want to give an exception to ‘them’?”

Why? Well the reason why is twofold; first the ANJRPC membership rolls would immediately swell as a provision of the law; second, this increase in our ranks and the subsequent further distribution of facts to this larger group of members/voters who tend to vote as a block just would not make sense to lawmakers who rely on maintaining a monopoly on “facts.”

The Times article reported Senator Inverso as saying upon his capitulation that when he proposed the ANJRPC-friendly amendment he “…thought it was a more structured organization.”

The article also quotes David Mateos of the shadowy handful of often celebrated anti-gun, Second Amendment foes collectively known as Ceasefire New Jersey as saying, “…It just came out of the blue. It was a significant weakening of the bill.”

The Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, Inc, is the prominent group who lobbies for the rights of New Jersey gun owners and we did not just “come out of the blue,” nor do we intend to go gently into the dark night as we have Constitutional Right on our side. The ANJRPC has been here since 1936 when it was chartered by the National rifle Association as this state’s Official State Association. As to being a “loose affiliation,” we’ll we’re going to put that to the test in November.

We are comprised of an elected board of directors: 6 Officers and 26 regional vice presidents. Our NRA twice-award-winning newsletter is mailed bimonthly to our individual members through out the state as well as our seventy-one (71) member clubs. Combined we can legitimately boast 25,000 supporters. Though this number is certainly mega-times more than the handful of anti-Bill of Rights zealot darlings who routinely “have their way” with the lawful gun owners of this state, (through the for-sale votes of oath-defying legislators), it is still far below the number we should have. We are working on it.

We operate on a member proportionate sized annual budget and are audited by an independent firm. Our innovative methods of promoting “our” agenda of Second Amendment continuance are currently being studied by the NRA for a program of national implementation in the near future. Our ranks include an occupationally “disproportionate” number of police officers, many of whom choose to use the excellent, model shooting facility we maintain in Vernon, Passaic County.

We are in our sixth year of our annual junior scholarship award program which offers two fifteen-hundred dollar ($1,500) awards to any deserving NJ high school seniors who apply to compete for than. By achieving a mastery of one or more of the various shooting disciplines our fine junior shooters have gone on to win championships both nationally and internationally as they distinguished themselves and their state – mostly without any help from this, their ungrateful state and its firearm based media.

Due to the constraints of this page, this letter is only a spattering explanation of who the ANJRPC is and what the ANJRPC does, has done, and intends to do. But let us point out a we recount history’s other examples of overbearing government and what a spattering of rag tag tattered, loosely affiliated group of highly dedicated people did 226 years ago in this geographical area appropriately tagged “the Crossroads of the American Revolution,” this place called New Jersey,

Lawrence J. Braico
Regional Vice President
Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, Inc.
(The Official NRA State Association)

Opinions and Editorials
The letters and articles in this section reflect the opinions of individual Association members and are not intended to represent official ANJRPC policy. 
Back to: Op-Ed