TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Gov. Chris Christie has asked his attorney general to investigate the state's visit to the home of a man who had posted online a photo of his son holding a military-style rifle, saying news reports raised "troubling questions" about how the case was handled. The state's child welfare agency and local police went to the Carneys Point home of Shawn Moore on March 14, following what police say were anonymous calls expressing concern about the safety of a child. Moore has said he believes he was investigated solely because of the photo he shared online of his son, Josh, holding the gun he got for his 11th birthday. The weapon was a .22-caliber rifle made to look like an assault weapon. He says caseworkers were aggressive and the visit unwarranted. No charges were filed.
This is actually a follow-up on a report from Kevin Baker at The Smallest Minority. Baker titled his March 20, 2013 piece "When Dealing With Guns, The Citizen Acts At His Peril", because it is in direct contrast to a 2003 New Jersey situation where a NJ citizen was imprisoned for simple posession of a .22 caliber rifle, which was apparently discovered in similar circumstances. (Details on the 1996 Joseph Pelleteri case are linked in the above article.)
Quick summary: Moore posted his kids picture on a social website. "Anonymous calls" (how many?) to the welfare department caused welfare busybodys to grab a cop or two when they called on the Moore home. The cops wanted to see his guns. Moore said no. Cops wanted to see how his guns were stored. Moore said no. The cops asked if they could come in. When he learned that they didn't have a search warrant, Moore said no. Thank you sir, have a nice day ... and the cops never came back.
You can see from the photo which started the whole magillicutty that the cherubic-faced boy isn't doing anything wrong. Well, but he's wearing a camo-patterened coat, and the gun is black, and it's got this EVIL big magazine. No wonder all of those Nervous Nellys called the guvmint to report what must have seemed a terrorist in training!
LOOKISM?
Look, it's a kid. And the gun is a .22. And it's legal. And it doesn't "Spray 'N Prey" (sic).
It's just a kid with a plinker. I've been shooting plinkers like that (only in brown, not black; and with a 10-round tube magazine instead of a how-many-I-don't-know inserted magazine) since I was a lot younger than this youngster.
Oh, wait! Back up to the Pelleieri case ... his .22 rifle was brown, not black; and it had a tubular magazine, too. I guess when people think that "All Guns Are Evil" and "Guns Are Only Good For Killing People", then the details, merely add more fuel to the book-burning fires.
Yeah; Baker has a link to THAT quandry, too, in his Pelleteri piece. The gun looks nothing like the one that Moore bought his son, but consider this:
When you are The Guvmint, the term "Assault Rifle" means whatever you say it means, regardless of the commonly held military definition, which includes:
- Military weapon (whatever that means)
- Intermediate or rifle-caliber
- stocked
- External (removable) magazine
- Selective fire (both semi-automatic and fully automatic)
- capable of having a bayonette attached
New Jersey, though, has a much simpler definition:
- semi-automatic
- capable of holding 10 rounds
(Well, that's "Assault Weapon", not "Assault Rifle"; they don't care if it's a stocked rifle, because the term "ASSAULT" doesn't mean what they taught me in the Army.)
________________________________________________________
BUY IT YESTERDAY, BAN IT TODAY, GET 10 YEARS TOMORROW
This discussion wouldn't be complete without at least one reference from the Main Stream Media.
Perhaps Scott Bach, columnist (blogger) for the New Jersey Times (NJ.com) would not be considered "MSM" by everybody, but for the purposes of this discussion .... hey, he's published
In his March 09, 2008 (!) article, Bach includes the following:
If you buy a lawful product that is later banned, should you go to jail for 10 years, even though you didn't know it was banned, and the government that banned it now criminalizes any method to dispose of it?
In the world of gun ban extremist Bryan Miller of CeaseFire NJ, [link added for convenience ... geek] the answer to this question is yes.
Miller sees no distinction between violent criminals with guns (who should go to jail) and otherwise law-abiding citizens who were turned into "criminals" by the State with the stroke of a pen, when New Jersey banned an entire class of commonly owned semi-automatic firearms in the 1990s with no grandfather provision, no attempt to notify licensed gun owners, and a short time window within which to legally dispose of, disable, or register the banned guns.
At a March 6 legislative hearing on S1304, which would increase the penalty for possession of such firearms to a potential 10-year prison term, I argued that the higher penalty should apply to violent criminals with guns, but that otherwise law abiding citizens who had purchased the guns when it was legal to do so, who may not know they are banned due to the law's judicially acknowledged vagueness, who are not involved in criminal activity, and who presently have no legal means to comply with the law, should not be facing 10 years in prison.
In my testimony, I quoted a Court's judicial opinion finding that the gun ban's vague and confusing language made it impossible to know with certainty whether some firearms are covered by the ban. I cited another case in which an otherwise law-abiding citizen was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to a prison term under the current penalty merely for possessing a common .22 caliber target gun he had legally purchased prior to the ban.
Sound familiar?
[NOTE: Both the "my testimony" and "another case" links are unavailable: the first is 'broken', the second is 'protected' (requires login).] My guess is he is referring to the Peleteri case.
Miller's link, however, is still active as of this date. I encourage you to read it, if only to understand the mindset behind it. Miller believes the law .. which makes felons of people who owned statuatorily 'banned' guns for simple possession ... to be fully justified in all its ramifications.
What that means is, this comes down to a conflict between the U.S. Constitution (2nd Amendment) and "States Rights".
Constitution: "... Shall not be infringed ..."
Heller Decision: "... the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that weapon for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Moreover, this right applies not just to the federal government, but to states and municipalities as well.
New Jersey: ""[a] semi-automatic rifle with a fixed magazine capacity exceeding [fifteen] rounds."
Ultimately, CONGRESS did not make this law. New Jersey did. And while Heller applied to whether or not an individual could legally keep a handgun in the home, it did NOT address the question of what specific types of firearms could be restricted from ANY ownership.
My advise, if you live in New Jersey ... move. Now! That law is constitutional until the Supreme Court decides it is not.
ON THE OTHER HAND ....
... now that Obama has finally and definitively identified himself as a Hoplophobe, and is STRONGLY threatening to impose draconian "Gun Control" laws on a national level, my best advise at this time is:
"Don't sell your Confederate Money, Boys!"
2 comments:
Don't give NJ Gov. Tubby too much credit. First, he is a known and practicing hoplophobe, and second, his presser on this could easily be interpreted to mean that he is looking for a way to sweep the fuss under the rug.
Government does not have to be: fair, logical, efficient, right, or merciful. It just needs to be BIG.
Antipoda
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