NJ Governor Only Hears One Side Of Gun Debate

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy isn’t a fan of your gun rights. Of course, for most of us, that’s not really a big thing for us. After all, we don’t live in New Jersey, thankfully, so his opinion of our gun rights doesn’t have much impact on us.

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For those who live in New Jersey, though, it has a big impact. Yuge impact.

And yet, it seems that Murphy is only looking for one side of the debate.

Through documents AmmoLand obtained through Freedom of Information Request W163771 I learned there were 13 known “special” meetings from February 13, 2018 to March 13, 2020. These meetings varied in “title”, switching names from “Roundtables” to “Town Hall Meetings” to “Exciting Announcements”, so on and so forth (the full list of which I will include at the end of this article). What was special about some of these meetings? Eight of the 13 meetings specifically mention firearms. All of these meetings had notices communicated to members of anti-civil rights groups looking to strip citizens of their 2nd Amendment freedoms.

One such lucky correspondent was The Reverend Robert “Bob” Moore ([email protected]), from The Coalition For Peace Action (CFPA, peacecoalition.org) and Ceasefire New Jersey (www.peacecoalition.org/campaigns/68-ceasefire-nj/628-ceasefire-nj.html) . The first such recorded meeting was a roundtable on “gun violence.” Scheduled to be in attendance was NJ Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald. Both CFPA and Ceasefire New Jersey are groups against the individual’s right to keep and bear arms. Dolores Phillips, the Legislative Director of Ceasefire New Jersey was copied into Bob’s email to Hilary Beckett (Then an Aide to the Governor, Intergovernmental Affairs, [email protected]), when accepting his invitation to attend the February 13, 2018 meeting.

I can tell you who was not invited to this meeting…

I reached out to several civil-rights oriented organizations that safeguard the Second Amendment: The Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, The Coalition of New Jersey Firearm Owners, The New Jersey Second Amendment Society, A representative of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action, and The National Shooting Sports Foundation. I sent them the full list of dates and events*** as listed at the end of this article and asked them if they were invited to participate in any of these “discussions” that Governor Phil Murphy’s administration had concerning firearms, “gun violence”, gun safety, etc.

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In other words, Murphy didn’t bother to include anyone from the gun rights side of the debate. He went to biased sources, got their take on guns and gun laws, then followed it. This is essentially Murphy’s confirmation bias playing out before our very eyes.

Now, I’m quite sure that the results would have been the same even if gun rights groups had been invited to speak with him. He would have gone with what he wanted to do in the first place, of course. All he would have done is look like he was trying to be fair.

Instead, though, he’s blatant about his lack of concern for what gun rights advocates have to say about anything.

Of course, that’s because gun rights advocates aren’t really a threat to him politically. He can ignore them with impunity, which is what every anti-gun governor does. They ignore gun rights supporters because there are no repercussions for doing so.

If New Jersey gun owners want to take Murphy and those who follow him to task, they need to increase their numbers sufficiently until they’re a force that can’t be ignored.

I sincerely hope they can, because Murphy needs to be brought down a peg or 12.

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