The Garden State is synonymous with many things; pork roll, the Jersey Shore, fist pumping, and good diners (to name a few). One of the things New Jersey is not known for, however, is being a bastion of freedom and civil liberties. New Jersey is so out of touch with what is important, they have pushed around a bill in the past that restricts people from declawing their cats.  Talk about taking the “my body my choice” rhetoric to the Nth degree! Let us not forget their incredibly restrictive gun laws.

The gun laws in New Jersey should be celebrated, should they not? After all the talking points about the restrictive nature of the laws are all in the interest of public safety. Given the weight of penalties and so many infractions that one could be ensnared by, it often leaves level headed people scratching their heads concerning the high crime rates of the Garden State’s big cities and how any infraction of the law can occur. It was recently reported another set of potential bad actors were picked up by police, you guessed it, in possession of a firearm. The New Jersey State Police press release stated this in part:

On April 7, at 10:59 a.m., a state trooper stopped Raekwon Brown, 20, of Poulan for a traffic violation on Interstate 78 westbound at milepost 44.8 in Berkeley Heights Township, state police said.

During the stop, troopers discovered that Brown and Octavius Henry, 20, of Tifton were in possession of a .45 caliber handgun, hollow-point ammunition, and several stolen credit cards and identification cards. Both were arrested without incident and transported to Somerville Station for processing, state police said.

During the investigation at the station, troopers discovered that the gun was reported stolen out of Georgia and determined that Brown and Henry allegedly stole the credit cards and identification cards from several vehicles in Maryland, state police said.

The actions of these troopers is something to be commended, as the alleged did not really seem like they were up to something good. Our boys in blue work hard to clean up the streets.  The echo chamber of New Jersey’s legislature will of course focus on pointing out the firearm in question was a stolen one out of Georgia and spew out about the “iron pipeline”. Rather, New Jersey should be looking at why does crime proliferate in the state the way it does.

Normal, every-day citizens do not have the same rights as the alleged. Both carrying a firearm and having it loaded with hollow-point ammunition, are not things Mr. and Mrs. New Jersey are afforded. In fact, the laws are so convoluted in the state that even if a person was able to get the unicorn of a concealed carry weapons permit, they would not be allowed to carry said firearm with hollow-point ammunition. No, hollow-point bullets, not even the full cartridges, are highly regulated based off the faulty 80’s and 90’s split tongued speak of “cop killer bullets,” when in fact hollow-point bullets are safer than many of their counterparts based on the possibility of the latter experiencing over-penetration. Never mind those fun facts.

A rather salient question was asked by Theresa Inacker, the Communications Director of the Coalition of New Jersey Firearm Owners and DC Project Delegate:

If Raekwon and Octavius are carrying handguns and hollow points, why can’t I?

She further pushes the issue by being frank:

It is folly to believe gun control works, as already shown here in NJ.

Inacker is right. The great lengths that New Jersey has gone through to thwart criminal behavior via rights restriction are an abysmal failure. Instead, New Jersey laws leave the citizenry unable to protect themselves and acts as a pitfall for those that were not aware they were breaking the law (Shaneen Allen and Gorden Van Gilder to name two of the many). The other big elephant in the room is New Jersey’s revolving door justice system. Often the gun charges are the first to be dropped in prosecutions of cases similar to the one that should arise from this arrest. Will the charges stick or kick? Given the amount of other things these two are being charged with, I see a plea in their future.

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