A measure sponsored by Senators Sandra Bolden Cunningham and Teresa Ruiz, which would prohibit the sale and purchase of more than one handgun per person, within a 30-day period was approved today by the full Senate by a vote of 21 to 15.
Unless I'm missing a state or two somewhere, that makes New Jersey the fourth to pass this kind of law (or fifth, if you count South Carolina, which repealed its version of the law in 2004, after finding it to be ineffective at reducing violent crime). The others that still have such a law are California (no surprise there, with it's Brady Campaign Number One Tyranny Rating), Maryland (again, no surprise, with Maryland ranking almost as “high” as California), and Virginia. The fact that Virginia is one of only three (soon to be four) states with such a law is probably a surprise to some. Virginia, after all, is blamed for having “lax gun laws” that contribute toward it being part of the so-called “Iron Pipeline” of guns that end up illegally in places like New York City.
The professor, Dr. Howard Andrews, testified that 90 percent of the guns recovered in New York crime investigations from 1996 to 2000 had been bought out of state. A large number came from five states with lax gun laws: Virginia, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
The idea of “one gun per month” laws, supposedly, is that they pose a serious obstacle for gun traffickers. The very New York Times editorial cited above, in fact, makes this claim:
Perhaps the most effective tool is a ”one gun per month” law, which bars anyone from buying more than one handgun in a month. These laws stop gunrunners from buying in volume, a limit that reduces their profits substantially.
It's a bit difficult to reconcile that with the fact that one of only three states to have such a law on the books is also considered one of the major source states for gun trafficking.
New Jersey already has extraordinarily draconian gun laws (it's ranked second only to California by the Brady Bunch, even before passage of the rights rationing bill). The purchase of each and every gun must be prefaced by acquisition of a permit from the police (which must be applied for in person, I believe). The permit, if nothing in the applicant's background prevents its issuance, is supposed to be issued within 30 days. No one is surprised, apparently, when it takes half a year or so, though. One would think that if restrictive gun laws worked to keep criminals disarmed, that permit process would do it. Actually, given New Jersey's insistence on blaming Pennsylvania's “lax gun laws” for NJ's violent crime, it seems that New Jersey has thought it already had the laws it needed, and that the problem was other states. Read more
Source: St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner
