Why does this idiot have a loaded gun locked in a safe? If you have time to unlock the safe, then you have time to load it. And if you have these kind of valuables at home why wouldn't you do a better job securing your windows?

The idea is to have the gun loaded and ready when you are home, and in the safe when you go out. That way you don't have to keep loading and unloading the gun.

"Like I said, I'm not against gun ownership. I am for restricted gun ownership, a privilege if you will."

Of course you are against gun ownership. It's one thing to opt out of keeping or bearing arms if you're not comfortable with them. But you go on to say in the next sentence that you want to interfere with other people exercising their right as well.

"The Heller case was brought due to stupid local legislation which said that any "bottom loaded" gun was an automatic weapon. While that's obviously ridiculous, the courts over-reached in the finding regarding the 2nd Amendment's militia clause."

Sort of. It also dealt with the overly restrictive overall permitting process. Technically, you could have a gun, but in practice it was almost impossible to get the legal ducks lined up in a row. Sort of like in NJ. If you want a legal gun, you must be willing to take days off from work, to pay fairly high fees to the state, to submit to a gross invasion of your privacy, and to wait for an unreasonably long period. And on top of that, we now have this stupid new law, which is what this topic was originally about.

"I understand that people want to exercise their 2nd Amendment right, but some people go to far."

Like wanting to own gun in the city, apparently.

Quote:

Switzerland? That must be a mistake. People are required to keep military rifles in their homes in Switzerland, yet they don't have a staggeringly high murder rate. Unpossible!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1566715.stm

Also, you are artificially lowering those numbers by including only gun murders and not all murders. Not that it changes your argument, but I'd like to take this opportunity to point out an intellectually dishonest technique used by anti-gun organizations to skew data in their favor. Another one is how the Brady campaign defines children as anyone 25 or under, so every time some loser gang member kills another gang member (how many live past 25), the brady campaign reports it as a "child being the victim of gun violence."

As was stated, correlation does not equal causation. The relationships between violent crime and firearms is MUCH more complex than more guns=more crime. I could make an argument about cars and crime. Cars are used in many crimes, as a way to travel to and from the crime scene, as a way to transport "tools of the trade", stolen goods, drugs, and other criminals, and as a method to evade the police. All to frequently a life is cut short by an impaired driver. However, no one would say that cars cause crimes. It is the actions of the driver that determine what the car does and what it is used for, and it is the driver who is held responsible for any mishaps that may occur. Not the car, but the driver. Why? Because cars haven't been villified by any special interest groups.

Someone mentioned federal regulations of firearms. Firearms are already heavily federally regulated. In fact, the relatively recent Heller vs. DC case was a challenge of an onerous federal law, which is unfortunately why it has not yet affected NJs absurd regulations. FEDERAL law requires background checks, not NJ state law. Straw purchases are prohibited by FEDERAL law. Criminals are prohibited from posessing firearms by FEDERAL law. NJ state gun laws are merely political ploys, a bunch of redundant, poorly written statutes that are crammed with media buzzwords and are so confusing that our own law agencies do not agree on how to enforce them. See for yourself (warning, PDF below):

http://www.state.nj.us/njsp/info/pdf/ ... ms/062408_title13ch54.pdf

NJ state laws are designed solely to punish gun owners and garner votes from the ignorant. No one bothers reading or thinking about any of these bills before they get passed. An example: the one-gun-per-month bill was recently reworded, at the expense of more state resources, because its original form (which passed) actually prohibited RETAILERS from transferring more than one handgun per month. The kicker? An attorney, Evan Nappen, actually pointed this out to the the "Task Force" committee (at least, to the the members who bothered to be present for his portion of the testimony) this problem. He was completely ignored.

The FPID process is another example. It is stated in the statute (part of the .pdf I linked) that the process should not take more than one month. However, there is no oversight on the process, so it really takes as long the issuing local police department feels like it. At some point, someone sued since they had been waiting several months. The judge basically ruled that despite the wording, the PD could take as long as they wanted. So, even though a background check can be done in 15 minutes with the NICS system, and will still be done regardless of your FPID at the point of sale (as per federal law, which NJ and NJ ONLY charges an extra $25 fee for), you still must pay NJ ~$70 for the FPID and wait for the PD to stop dragging their feet. Jersey City in particular is notorious for long wait times, sometimes exceeding ONE YEAR! How would you like to pass your written and road test, then wait one year for your driver's license, for no reason at all? How about registering to vote, and then having to wait 6 months before you are actually allowed to go to the polls? No one would stand for that.

To the member who posted the entirely irrelevent story about the dumb kid who shot himself: What does that have to do with this? A 12 year old is old enough to know not to play with guns. I was left home alone at 12, with access to the following items (off of the top of my head):

Matches
Keys to my parents' cars
Poisonous chemicals
Power tools
Prescription medicines

If I had stolen my parent's car, joyridden around, and hit someone, would the car be blamed? Would General Motors be blamed? No, I would have been blamed. If I had played with matches, and burned down the house, would anyone call to regulate the sale of matches? It is testament to the level of firearms ignorance (and therefore fear, since some people fear what they aren't familiar with) in this state that the unrelated death of a child is even being brought into this debate.

I just realized I spelled "argument" incorrectly in several places. Please excuse.

"This is not to say, of course, that correlation proves causation - it does not. No studies have been able to show that higher rates of gun ownership are the cause of the higher murder rates - or that lowering rates of gun ownership decreases murder rates."

I agree. I was simply trying to point out the logical fallacy in the propaganda I have been hearing in the news lately.

"So neither side of the debate currently has the evidence it really needs to show whether gun control should be an important aspect of public policy efforts to decrease violent crime."

Not quite - in the absence of concrete evidence showing that stricter gun laws reduce violent crime, there is absolutely no justification to waste resources drafting, passing, and enforcing gun laws that - once again - GREATLY impact law abiding citizens like myself. The arguement shouldn't be "show me how fewer gun laws reduce crime." We should be asking "Why on earth are we making all this effort when no one can show that it makes any difference?"

After everything I said in my other post, I think the real reason anyone should be concerned about this bill has nothing to do with guns. Most people aren't "gun guys" and hearing about one-gun-per month they might think "big deal, I don't buy guns anyway, who cares how many guns the gun nuts can get at once." Well, the biggest issue with this bill is it is a red herring. It takes resources to implement any governmewnt policy and this one has no tangible benefit. There is massive corruption in this state, which has reached all levels of government from Jersey City's local police all the way up the chain, and Governer Corzine has successfully said to the NJ public "LOOK OVER THERE! YOUR PROBLEMS ARE BEING CAUSED BY A SMALL MINORITY OF HOBBYISTS WE HAVE BEEN SCAPEGOATING FOR THE LAST 20 YEARS!" and it is just being eaten up. I guess it bothers me that I'm being portrayed as a threat for no other reason that I like expensive toys that make loud noises, no different than your neighbor who owns a sports car/motorcycle or some guy who loves his deafening DJ setup. You might not understand it but that doesn't mean I should be punished.

I'm new and don't know how to use the quote function well, so forgive me if anything I say is confusing. Time to correct lots of misinformation in this thread.

1. You cannot buy a gun without first getting a background check, either at a store or a gunshow. This is true in all 50 states, and has been since the Brady Act of 1993. The "gun show loophole" that the antis blather on about doesn't exist. The "loophole" they are actually referring only covers private transfers, such as inheritance and gifts, which they have been trying to make illegal. The initial purchase still requires a background check.

2. I actually sat through the entire "One-Gun-A-Month" public hearing (which is more than I can say for Governer Corzine, or any of the "Task Force" members), where evidence both for and against the law was supposed to be presented. There was virtually no evidence presented that was in favor of the law. Other states with similar ordinances showed no impact, positive or negative, on crime rates. The "time to crime" data, which measures how much time elapses between a gun being purchased and a gun being used in a crime, is 12 years in NJ. Unless straw buyers are sitting on their wares for a few years, criminals are getting firearms through theft, not NJ straw buyers.

3. It is impossible to buy 12 handguns per year in NJ. Just head on down to the police station and find out. After applying for your FID, simply wait 6-12 months while your background check (which can be done in 15 minutes over the phone) and paperwork sits at the police station. Once your FID is approved, come back and apply for one (and only one) Pistol Purchase Permit. Pay the background check fee once again, and wait 3-6 months for your permit. Go to the store. Don't see what you want? Well, too bad, because you only have three months to use the permit, and it is non-refundable. If you find what you want, fill out the paperwork and pay for a third background check (all these checks are the same, BTW). It is impossible to complete this process 12 times per year.

4. This law, while doing lots to make my life difficult as a gun owner, actually greatly impedes the ATF in their duties of catching straw buyers. Why is that, you ask? Well, when someone buys more than one handgun at a time, a red flag goes up in the ATF's database and that person will get some extra scrutiny. Now, only one purchase will be made at a time. There is nothing distinguishing a potential straw buyer (as few as they are) from anyone else.

Those of you support this law...please, head down to the JCPD at 8 Erie street and get your FID. You don't have to buy a gun, but you will quickly see that this law is pointless and redundant in the face of the extensive and onerous process to get an FID in NJ. Besides, criminals get guns the same place they get drugs...the black market.

Just one more observation...the new attack that antis are making is that we in NJ have high "gun crime" (of course, other crime is OK) because of lax laws in other states. HOW COME THOSE OTHER STATES HAVE LOWER CRIME RATES THAN NJ IF IT IS SO EASY TO GET GUNS THERE? It\'s because crime rates have nothing to do with gun ownership. Guns don't cause or reduce crime any more than cars do...there is just no relation. Look at NJ's Brady score:

http://www.bradycampaign.org/stategunlaws/NJ

NJ is ranked #2 out of 50. If guns laws impacted crime, we should also have the second lowest violent crime in the nation, but we don't. We are surpassed by numerous states with "dangerously loose" gun laws. Seems like poverty and urban decay has much more impact on crime than how many guns I, a tax paying, gainfully employed, productive citizen can waste his money on in a given time period.

If you read this whole post to the bottom, thanks for taking the time.

I had a JC police officer (first name Ernie) draw his sidearm (he did not point it at me) as a "joke," pretending to be pissed that I wouldn't deliver an order out to him. He was out of uniform at the time, but his actions were still irresponsible.

Whenever the building inspector visits me they only appear to be concerned with the smoke/CO detectors, whether or not there is debris on the fire escape, and if there are any leaks in the roof. If you have ANY issues with your apartment whatsoever, and your landlord isn't the kind of person who can be relied upon, show them to the inspector. It makes a great paper trail and tends to motivate the landlord a bit.

Let me get this straight...they walked away with your stool while you were still standing there, with your back to them?

I would imagine most courts would strike this down. I know the ACLU has been successful at helping citizens fight curfews in the past. It saddens me that Paterson's leaders feel it is acceptable to punish everyone for in their entire town instead of coming up with a more effective crimefighting plan. What's even worse is that some residents support them. To me, trading liberty for perceived security (as if a curfew will stop black market activity) just isn't worth it.

Ummm....what about the right to peaceably assemble?

Thanks, I'll do that.

Has anyone been to Rolon\'s Bar at 242 Bay Street? I searched and didn\'t find any topics. Great place IMO.

Pros:

$2.00 domestic beers, $2.50 imported beers and well drinks, ALL THE TIME!

NO TIPPING!

Very quiet crowd of regulars, never seen any fights or incidents even on Fridays and Saturdays. My friend and I went there one Friday, got hammered, and left. He left his full paycheck (cash) and his passport. A patron turned it to Rolon and Rolon stopped by our job and dropped it off the next day. That\'s the kind of place it is.

Rolon is a nice guy and gives out free food and drinks fairly often.

Cons:

Many of the \"regulars\" are the alcoholic bums who sell bootleg DVDs and/or beg for change. They won\'t bother you in the bar but some people might not like them. LOL they congregate around the entrance every morning waiting Rolon to open up so they can get their breakfast.

The bathroom door does not lock, and it also has a large window for some reason.

If you\'re looking for a date, you probably won\'t find one there.

I think it is cash only.



Anyway just thought y\'all might like to know about this place if haven\'t been there, or didn\'t stop in b/c it looked to shady.