You remember Fred Madden? The New Jersey State Senator who rolled over for Governor Corzine to bring one-gun-a-month to the Garden State? Well, apparently he’s come up with a considerably less than ideal solution that doesn’t even begin to make up for it. Fred Madden is up for re-election in 2011. Gun owners in New Jersey need to show they can target an unseat someone like Madden. You only need a few heads on a pike before the politicians there start listening.
5 thoughts on “Fred Madden Throws A Rotten Bone”
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Just because its better than status quo ante doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go find (metaphorical) tar, feathers, and and a rail. Contrariwise, Mike Patrick Carroll should be rewarded for pushing real CCW reform and other pro-rights legislation.
As a matter of principle, I hate what madden did and the one-gun bill, which is even more absurd here in Jersey than it is elsewhere.
… But as a practical matter? This proposed “handgun purchaser card”, insultingly unnecessary and condescending as it is, would have a much greater impact on my life than OGaM. Guns are expensive, and the only reason I ever had to buy them close together was to use up a bunch of pistol permits before they expired, to get the most mileage out of a single permit application.
The most destructive and burdensome part of Jersey’s handgun purchase law, at least for me, is the de facto employer notification they do every time I apply for pistol permits*. In this insane state, that kind of thing could get a guy fired. Doing away with that intimidation tactic would be a much bigger deal to me in practice than telling me I can’t do something I could rarely afford to do anyway.
If Madden wants to try to buy my forgiveness for a largely symbolic FU to gun owners by taking a small but material step in the right direction, I’m not going to discourage him.
[* – They send an “is this person fit to own firearms” questionnaire to the applicant’s employer each time, even though–according to my local PD–the New jersey state AG has strictly instructed them not to deny permits based on that questionnaire.]
I’m just surprised that New Jersey’s gun laws still haven’t been challenged in a SCOTUS case yet. What’s taking so long with that already? It’s been over two years since the Heller decision, and over six months since the McDonald decision, right? We surely can’t count on Chris Christie to do anything, so a SCOTUS victory is probably the best thing to work on as far as I’m concerned.
There has been one filed already to go after the carry permit issue in New Jersey (which is largely required to have a gun in your car, loaded or not, and they are never issued). But putting together a good case takes a long time, and quite a lot of resources. Given that, this is going to take a while. The next step would appear to be getting Second Amendment rights recognized outside the home.
OK, Elmo, you got me. As a step towards wiping out the whole PPP system in NJ, I guess he’s making amends for OGaM. Would have been better for him to replace the FID with this and say “18 for longarms, 21 for handguns”, since that’s effectivey what you get, except for having to hold two pieces of paper.