Thursday, July 2, 2009

Stop The Presses!

Flash! New Jersey newspaper editorial not on board with new gun control law!

The Bergen County Daily Record published an editorial today on the "one-gun-a-month" law awaiting the governor's signature. Excerpt:
It is not easy to become a legal buyer of guns in New Jersey. Among other things, it requires fingerprinting, personal references and a background check by the local police department. The process from start to finish normally takes more than 30 days. When a resident successfully completes that process, he, or she, is eligible to buy a gun. (This is not a right to legally carry a gun, which is an additional application process.)

If a person is cleared to buy a gun in New Jersey, why seek to limit the number of guns that can be bought? Many of the people who legally buy multiple guns are collectors of one type or another, or recreational and competitive shooters. Their backgrounds already have been investigated. Let them buy their guns. We have referenced those who "legally" buy guns for a reason, knowing that lawbreakers are unlikely to adhere to gun-control laws in the first place.
Wow! I was so impressed I registered just to leave a comment:
A breath of fresh air from a New Jersey newspaper on the gun control issue! Very good point: if every gun buyer has to pass such a rigorous background check before buying a gun, why limit buyers to one a month? It's unreasonable. Not that that ever stopped a legislature hell-bent on eliminating private gun ownership by the method of "the death of a thousand cuts", i.e. more paperwork, fees, registration, references, fingerprinting, tests, inspections, etc. Excessive gun control legislation may also have unintended consequences: driving up the price of black-market guns and actually increasing the supply available to the criminal, while restricting the supply to the law-abiding. Was it Hippocrates who said, "First, do no harm."?

h/t Alphecca.

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