Drizzt
Member
Copyright 2002 The Morning Call, Inc.
The Morning Call (Allentown)
December 29, 2002 Sunday FIRST EDITION
SECTION: LOCAL, Pg. B1, CARPENTER
LENGTH: 589 words
HEADLINE: Law provides for guns so safe they don't work at all
BYLINE: By Paul Carpenter Of The Morning Call
BODY:
What could be more reasonable than a state law to make handguns safer?
As I noted on Friday, New Jersey's new "smart gun" law requires that handguns be equipped with devices to keep them from being fired by marauding children, etc.
"Smart gun technology prevents anyone, except the recognized user of the gun, from firing the weapon," gushed a statement from Gov. James McGreevey, as he signed the bill on Dec. 23.
"Personalized handguns can include a sensor on the handle of the gun, fingerprint recognition, remote control, magnetic coding or radio transmitters," the governor's statement said. The fact that no such technology exists did not deter the Trenton crowd. They said the law will not take effect until after the technology is available, so skeptics should not get their noses out of joint.
On Friday, I said I like to look at an actual law, in addition to reading what politicians say about it, before I make up my mind. Now that I have read the new measure, I'm afraid I am still a skeptic.
The first thing I looked for was the part that said the law cannot take effect until after the technology is available.
"Personalized handguns shall be deemed to be available for retail purposes," it says, "if at least one manufacturer has delivered at least one production model of a personalized handgun to a registered or licensed wholesale or retail dealer in New Jersey or any other state."
There is nothing in the law that says the gun necessarily has to work. The Flybynite Corkscrew Co. of Cucamonga can make a gun with magnetic coding, or whatever, and sell it to the Hillary Clinton Gun Boutique in Podunk. If one gun, anywhere, has a device to keep it from firing, the rule takes effect in New Jersey.
Do you believe that is intended to make guns safer, or to make guns not work at all?
Here is the law's most revealing part: "The provisions of this section," it says, "shall not apply to handguns to be sold, transferred, assigned and delivered for official use to" police or federal authorities.
If the law's authors truly feel it will make guns safer while letting them function for legitimate purposes, why not also let it apply to the police? Don't we want their guns to be both safe and operational?
Logic dictates there is only one reason for such a law. It is designed to disarm everyone except government. It is not a safety measure; it is a measure to give government ultimate power. Every tyranny in world history has done the same thing -- disarm the public so that the public need not be feared by the power structure.
Having been shot at three times in my life, I am all for genuine gun safety. When I was a boy, my parents let me hunt and target shoot by myself because they knew that I knew guns had to be taken seriously and handled properly. In those days, kids may have done many foolish things but we were well educated about guns -- and I never saw any magnetic coding.
Today, antigun hysteria has enabled government to enact one restriction after another, with just as much efficacy as the war on drugs. And now that the land east of the Delaware River has a new law to take functioning firearms out of the hands of everyone except the government, how long will it be before a similar proposal arises west of the Delaware?
It happens that one of the two most ardent gun control advocates in the Pennsylvania Legislature is from the Lehigh Valley -- Rep. T.J. Rooney, D-Northampton. I'll ask him about it if he returns my calls.
[email protected]
The Morning Call (Allentown)
December 29, 2002 Sunday FIRST EDITION
SECTION: LOCAL, Pg. B1, CARPENTER
LENGTH: 589 words
HEADLINE: Law provides for guns so safe they don't work at all
BYLINE: By Paul Carpenter Of The Morning Call
BODY:
What could be more reasonable than a state law to make handguns safer?
As I noted on Friday, New Jersey's new "smart gun" law requires that handguns be equipped with devices to keep them from being fired by marauding children, etc.
"Smart gun technology prevents anyone, except the recognized user of the gun, from firing the weapon," gushed a statement from Gov. James McGreevey, as he signed the bill on Dec. 23.
"Personalized handguns can include a sensor on the handle of the gun, fingerprint recognition, remote control, magnetic coding or radio transmitters," the governor's statement said. The fact that no such technology exists did not deter the Trenton crowd. They said the law will not take effect until after the technology is available, so skeptics should not get their noses out of joint.
On Friday, I said I like to look at an actual law, in addition to reading what politicians say about it, before I make up my mind. Now that I have read the new measure, I'm afraid I am still a skeptic.
The first thing I looked for was the part that said the law cannot take effect until after the technology is available.
"Personalized handguns shall be deemed to be available for retail purposes," it says, "if at least one manufacturer has delivered at least one production model of a personalized handgun to a registered or licensed wholesale or retail dealer in New Jersey or any other state."
There is nothing in the law that says the gun necessarily has to work. The Flybynite Corkscrew Co. of Cucamonga can make a gun with magnetic coding, or whatever, and sell it to the Hillary Clinton Gun Boutique in Podunk. If one gun, anywhere, has a device to keep it from firing, the rule takes effect in New Jersey.
Do you believe that is intended to make guns safer, or to make guns not work at all?
Here is the law's most revealing part: "The provisions of this section," it says, "shall not apply to handguns to be sold, transferred, assigned and delivered for official use to" police or federal authorities.
If the law's authors truly feel it will make guns safer while letting them function for legitimate purposes, why not also let it apply to the police? Don't we want their guns to be both safe and operational?
Logic dictates there is only one reason for such a law. It is designed to disarm everyone except government. It is not a safety measure; it is a measure to give government ultimate power. Every tyranny in world history has done the same thing -- disarm the public so that the public need not be feared by the power structure.
Having been shot at three times in my life, I am all for genuine gun safety. When I was a boy, my parents let me hunt and target shoot by myself because they knew that I knew guns had to be taken seriously and handled properly. In those days, kids may have done many foolish things but we were well educated about guns -- and I never saw any magnetic coding.
Today, antigun hysteria has enabled government to enact one restriction after another, with just as much efficacy as the war on drugs. And now that the land east of the Delaware River has a new law to take functioning firearms out of the hands of everyone except the government, how long will it be before a similar proposal arises west of the Delaware?
It happens that one of the two most ardent gun control advocates in the Pennsylvania Legislature is from the Lehigh Valley -- Rep. T.J. Rooney, D-Northampton. I'll ask him about it if he returns my calls.
[email protected]
