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Christie’s Last Chance on Guns?
If I were teaching a civics course — and if you are, please borrow this example — I’d include a whole lesson on New Jersey Assembly Bill No. 700. Known as the Childproof Handgun Law, it was passed in 2002 in an attempt to encourage the manufacture of “smart guns.” It’s arguably one of the most foolish laws ever passed from any perspective, perfectly illustrating not only the effects of legislative ignorance and hubris, but also the Law of Unintended Consequences.
The main text reads as follows:
The amended bill specifies that three years after it is determined that personalized handguns are available for retail purposes, it will be illegal for any registered or licensed firearms manufacturer or dealer to transport, sell, expose for sale, possess for sale, assign or transfer any handgun unless that handgun is a personalized handgun.
The problems here are legion. The most obvious and commonly-cited is that any technology sufficiently good to deny a determined “unauthorized” user access is also likely to impede an authorized user in an emergency. Indeed, 14 years after the passage of the bill, smartphones that use fingerprint verification as an option purposefully allow users to bypass that feature when making emergency calls.
Sticking with usage, the law doesn’t contemplate a number of circumstances that would immediately occur to people of even a passing acquaintance with firearms. Are you expected to add a new user every time you bring a friend to the range? What if the guy in the lane next to me wants to try shooting it? Or if the range officer wants to show me how to improve my form? All this would take all the fun out of shooting and wouldn’t make anyone safer. And say what you want about trigger locks (believe me, I have), but at least once they’re off the weapon, they’re off the weapon.
But while ignorance of the subject of regulation is hardly novel, the effects of the law’s overreach were spectacular. Knowing that their customers did not desire this technology — and moreover that they would (rightly) blame whomever forced it upon them — no American gun manufacturer has brought such a product to market, meaning that the law has never gone into effect. It’s not just a bad law from a gun rights’ perspective, but a profoundly stupid one from the perspective of a hoplophobe.
Apparently, New Jersey’s legislators have gotten the message and are now attempting to fix the law with an amendment that would replace on the sale or transfer of non-smart guns with a requirement that retailers carry at least one smart model in their inventory. (President Obama has also recently signaled his interest in promoting smart guns.) This devil’s bargain — exchanging an awful law that probably won’t go into effect for a merely dumb one that likely will — is now wending its way toward Governor Chris Christie’s desk.
As of yesterday, Christie hadn’t commented on it, but most speculation is that he’ll veto it. That’d be the smart move politically during a presidential campaign and, arguably, the right one on substance. But if he’s looking for a Road to Damascus moment to repudiate his wishy-washy record on firearms as suggested a while back on Mad Dogs & Englishmen, this may be his last opportunity.
Published in Domestic Policy, Guns, Politics
Christie is soft on the second amendment issues. I don’t expect that the NRA will be endorsing him anytime soon. Lacking NRA endorsement, Christie is on the short end of the stick. He’ll appeal to some but not enough voters to continue much longer.
Given his weakness on the second amendment, his time as a federal attorney and a governor not withstanding, he won’t be considered for the Attorney General slot which under other circumstances he may have had an opportunity to get.
Once the smart system fails, you can always throw that useless hunk of metal at the bad guy. I’m sure that’ll end well.
I could never vote for anyone who was ever, even for a moment or a blink of an eye, been in favor of furthering legislative infringements of second amendment rights. It’s my one line in the sand.
As a New Jersey resident and gun owner, I’m embarrassed to say that until I read about it on Ricochet, I was unaware of this law. In my defense, my ignorance derived from my focus on NJ gun laws that had more relevance to me. For example, I still own my childhood BB gun. Upon familiarizing myself with certain NJ gun statutes, I learned that the state considers the BB gun to be the same as any other long gun! A friend of mine had police come into his house and confiscate his BB gun because he had texted a girlfriend who had taken out a retraining order against him.
The personalized weapon law is spectacularly stupid and, in my opinion, unconstitutional. However, I don’t think personalized firearms are stupid. I would consider owning one. People should have the freedom to choose.
That is why I will file the the front sight off any ‘smart gun’. That way it will hurt less when the gang banging drug dealers use it to perform a proctology exam on me.
The woman who authored this blitheringly awful law recognized back in 2011, when the Armatrix pistol was being bandied about, that the law was actually counter-productive. However, rather than actually recanting her position, she said she would only endorse the repeal of the law if the NRA agreed to forever remove its objections to New Jersey’s other tyrannical gun laws and agree to magazine size restrictions. Of course the NRA made no public comment.
Johnny, you’re trying to make me foam at the mouth here, aren’t you?
I keep my Genuine Red Rider BB gun at my mom’s house out of state because I don’t want to deal with the paperwork for a toy. The kids get to use when they visit Grandma though.
Vetoing new stupid gun laws is nice, but Christie has been in office a long time. It would have been nice if he had tried to repeal some of the existing silliness.
Agreed. It’s doubtful whether he’d be able to accomplish much, but it’d sure have been good to see him try.
Because there are some crazy laws on the books that he could go after without coming across as a gun nut.
Anyway, at least I can go to the range, show my drivers license, and rent a few handguns to try out.
I’d sign the ammended law. Someone will eventually put a smart gun for sale despite the Jersey law. When that happens, reliable handguns will soon be banned from the state.
Republicans are never taking the Jersey legislature. Remove the worst outcome and sign the ammended law.
Hmm, if I scratch my initials on the side of the gun, does that make it “personalized?”
I’ve been mulling this comment over since you put it up. I think you are right on this. Get that law off the books, even if the trade-off is still stupid. Stupid is better than disastrous.
I’m going to personalize my guns by bedazzling them!
I don’t see how the original, stupid law could survive a Constitutional challenge. It is far too restrictive of the right protected under the Second Amendment.
The proposed amendment is not unconstitutional but it is economically stupid. The types of products offered should be determined by retailers and customers – the market. Central planning is evil, even when it’s the “lite” form.
1 justice. Just 1 justice is all they need.
New Jersey’s legislators must be some of the most incompetent in the nation.
The state’s law regarding cellphone use while driving states that you may talk on a cellphone if it has the capability of being used hands-free. It does not require you to actually be using the hands-free capability. Virtually all phones have that feature. Therefore, the law permits one to talk on a cellphone in his hand while driving.
I definitely get that argument and inclined that way initially.
My counter would be that it’d set up an incrementalism that runs into the boiling frog scenario that would likely lead to something very much like the current law.
With the current law, there’s a better chance for real outrage and judicial intervention if it ever triggers.
There have be several of cases that the Supreme court should have taken on the second amendment where it simply refused to. I think it’s likely that this is another one.
One that bans the sale of all existing firearms? I don’t see that flying post-MacDonald.
In Jersey? Doubt it. The Supremes have not taken up a single gun case since Macdonald, even letting appellate decisions that violate Macdonald and Heller still stand. With the federal judiciary now loaded up on Obama appointees (and Bush being largely prevented from doing the same before), I seriously doubt that any challenge to the current law would be upheld.
California, New Jersey, and New York have actually confiscated guns. Has that been successfully challenged?
I think you’re looking at this wrong. The ban does not prevent a person from selling or buying handguns. It requires that those handguns have a device that makes it so only authorized users can fire it.
The State’s argument is “You can still buy handguns. Heck, you can guy 20 off them. The State of new Jersey has not prevented anyone from exercising their right to defend themselves. Just as we put food safety requirements on restaurants, we have put a requirement in place that makes handgun accidents less likely.”
The counter argument is that these guns are less reliable, and the rule puts excessive burdens on our second amendment rights. But if you are not a gun person, I don’t think you view it that way.
I think you’re understating how awful the current law is. Remember, the law not only makes the sale of new non-smart guns illegal, but also makes the re-sale and transfer of existing non-smart guns illegal.
That’s a pretty high hurdle to clear.
Try transferring a grandfathered firearm in New York, or California. The SAFE act still has not been successfully challenged.
Such laws already exist though. As Skip said, numerous states have banned and then confiscated various guns. The SAFE act has led to the confiscation of guns if a person can be identified as ever having been on anti-anxiety or anti-depressant medication. No actual mental illness need be proved. God forbid you went through a horrible divorce and needed help for a few months. Hand over your guns 5 years later.
Neither sanity nor the courts stopped the State from confiscating these guns.
Several states make the process of getting a carry permit effectively impossible, in direct violation of the supreme court on the subject. Yet the court has refused to take cases that could stop them.
The supreme court was willing to acknowledge the individual right to own and carry guns. They refuse to expand on that ruling. Relying on them (particularly at a time when many on the right seem eager to lose the election this year, making it likely that the court will flip on this issue in the coming years) is a mistake.
Inshah’allah.