Firearms advocates reject New Jersey governor's legislation package

The leader of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society panned Gov. Phil Murphy’s renewed call to pass the gun safety legislative package he first proposed in April 2021.

The first two-term Democratic governor of the Garden State in more than 40 years urged legislators to pass that package both in April and again on May 25, a day after 19 children and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The victims included best friends, cousins and honor roll students, The Center Square reported.

“There is no correlation with stricter gun laws and less 'gun violence.' If that were the case, Trenton, Camden, Newark, et al, would be gun-free utopias and Governor Murphy could visit those cities without his tax-funded armed guards," Alex “Alejandro" Roubian, the society's president, told The Center Square.

Measures the state has taken in response to gun violence include establishing a “red flag” law for gun violence protective orders, criminalizing firearms trafficking, strengthening background checks, limiting the capacity of ammunition magazines, and banning “ghost guns.”

In addition, New Jersey has established the Gun Violence Research Center to identify evidence-based solutions to gun violence, and established a partnership with Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania so law enforcement agencies can share crime gun data, the governor’s office said.

“Disarming the innocent is the greatest act of violence. This happened because of gun control, not because of the lack of it,” Roubian said. “Children are entitled to the same, if not more, protection than the politicians that have made them easy targets.”

In the investigations, the local police have come under fire for lack of action and poor analysis of the situation. Students called 911 from classrooms, begging for help.

A study conducted by the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center, and five schools at Rutgers University, issued a report that claimed states with stricter firearms laws reported lower suicide and homicide rates, Rutgers University reported.

Researchers used the State Firearm Law Database to compare suicide and homicide rates nationally from 1991 to 2017 with the number of firearm laws in each state. Even after factoring in unemployment and overall gun ownership rates, the researchers said how many firearms laws a state had was a significant predictor of homicide and suicide rates, the university reported.

The Garden States 2A Grassroots Organization rejected Murphy’s previous call for more gun control laws in April, calling them unconstitutional.

“GS2AGO strongly opposes these bills. Every one of these proposals is unconstitutional,” the organization said in an April blog post. "None of these bills make anyone safer and they certainly don't stop criminals from acting violently with firearms – because criminals won't follow any of these laws, either. Laws like these only infringe upon the rights of the law-abiding.”