Editorial admits criminals won’t obey gun laws
The Courier Post has said, surprising to most, that criminals don’t obey gun laws. Actually, what they say is that Federal gun ban’s demise will weaken N.J. protections:
The good news is that New Jersey’s ban on assault weapons still stands despite the refusal by the Republican-dominated Congress to renew a federal ban.
The bad news is that, without the federal ban in place, it’s only a matter of time before military-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines start showing up in New Jersey after first being purchased legally in other states.
Because criminals don’t obey laws. More:
It’s a travesty that this successful ban on dangerous devices designed to kill people was allowed to disappear.
Police officials said that, before President Clinton signed the bill into law in 1994, weapons such as those banned by the law were the instruments of choice for organized gangs. Since the ban, violent crime has declined every year, reaching its lowest level ever in 2003, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Actually, no the didn’t. In fact, the Trenton, NJ chief Joseph Constance said in 1993:
Since police started keeping statistics, we now know that assault weapons are/were used in an underwhelming 0.026 of 1% of crimes in New Jersey. This means that my officers are more likely to encounter an escaped tiger from the zoo than to confront an assault weapon in the hands of of a drug-crazed killer on the streets
