You're right with that attitude. This is why N.J. has such crappy laws, because people have convinced themselves they are at the mercy of the state and powerless to change things.
That remark hits the nail on the head.
Sigh. And this is where I have to shake it off find some compassion.
The bottom line is that taking fingerprints and all the other nonsense has proven to be an effective hurdle to lawful gunownership in NJ. People don't like their prints taken, and this sets the bar higher than most folks are willing to go. The result is that 40 years later, gun ownership is down to 12-13%, which is way off the national average, and is (iirc) the lowest rate of gunownership in the nation.
As we all know, gunowners who actually vote like they own guns are even less than that, and the simple reality is that with numbers like that, gun voters are a trivial voting bloc in NJ, and everyone knows it.
Even if every gunowner in the state was as mortally offended as I was (and damned few of them are) they'd still be massively outnumbered by any and every other voting bloc.
They are in fact helpless, and their choices are few:
A) chafe in unending misery
B) move
C) somehow find accommodation and peace with their situation.
Most of the gunnies I knew that are still there have found some accommodation by acknowledging A) and planning to someday B). Others find their own way of going about it. Convincing oneself that it's not so bad is a coping and survival mechanism, even though it leads to perverse outcomes like the Stockholme syndrome.
Unlike a lot of states where there's at least a theoretical fighting chance of reform, NJ is too far gone, and so I have to remind myself to have some compassion for thoses guys.
