Imagine, if you will, that the government decided you could only exercise your freedom of speech once per month. What would you do? What if it told you that you could only go to church once per month? What then?
If you're like most of us, you'd be angry. However, states do this with gun purchases all the time, and it's time for that to end.
The Firearms Policy Coalition recently took aim at a New Jersey law restricting people from buying more than one gun per month.
Following its victory ending California’s “1-in-30” firearm purchase ban, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that it has filed a new federal lawsuit to strike down New Jersey’s version of the law. The complaint in Struck v. Platkin can be viewed at firearmspolicy.org/struck.
“This case presents a simple question of law,” states the lawsuit. “The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms’—plural—‘which shall not be infringed.’”
“It’s been said that ‘as goes California, so goes the nation.’ In this case, California’s ban was properly declared unconstitutional and enjoined from enforcement following years of litigation, and so it will go with all such bans throughout the United States. We will force New Jersey and every other state to abide by the Second Amendment’s protections without exception,” said FPC President Brandon Combs.
This is important work, because gun rationing laws like what New Jersey has on the books need to die a fiery, painful death.
In theory, these laws are meant to prevent straw buyers. If people can only buy one gun per month, they can't make a living off of buying guns for prohibited people.
However, we also know that straw buys account for only a tiny percentage of the guns that end up in criminal hands. What's more, most of them are purchased for the prohibited party by friends or family, not career straw buyers. For example, a guy gets his girlfriend to buy him a handgun because he can't pass the background check.
Few are buying a ton of firearms for illegal sale.
Instead, criminals get them largely through theft. They steal them or buy one from someone else who stole it.
So really, these laws are billed as preventing black market buyers, but those guys aren't an issue. What this does is keep regular folks from buying guns.
"But why would you need to buy more than one gun a month anyway?"
Well, "needs" doesn't factor into anything. Why do you need to comment on everyone's X thread? Why do you need to share your relationship baggage on Facebook? You don't, but you have a right to do so and no law should try to interfere with that right.
But for the sake of argument, let's assume a man decides it's time to get back into hunting. He hadn't been since he was a kid, but now his own son is of age and it's time to build those memories. Hunting season is right around the corner, but he has to buy two guns, one for him and one for his son. Under New Jersey's law, he can't. Someone is going to have to sit out for at least a month until he can buy another gun.
What if he decides he wants to shoot three-gun competitions? As the name implies, you kind of need more than one gun for that.
Maybe your neighborhood is starting to get a little rougher than you're comfortable with, so you want to buy a handgun to carry now that you have a concealed carry permit, but you also want one for the house so your partner can protect themselves when you're not there.
The list goes on and on.
However, the main reason these laws need to die is they do nothing except interfere with the exercising of people's rights. That's as wrong as a law can get, and it's time these laws went away forever.