Author: thomaswilson1972

We would like to extend a Happy and Safe Fourth of July to all. Please be safe and enjoy your friends and family.

Well, here we go again. We have been trying to make society understand for many years now that enacting new “Common Sense Gun Laws” does not keep the firearms out of the criminals hands or stop them from using said firearms during the committing of their crimes. One would think that anyone who is semi intelligent would be able to draw this conclusion on their own, but I am never let down by the lack of common sense that runs rampid in this country. It just goes to show that the mainstream thinking in this country is not done by the individual, but most of it is done by someone else for them. What I am trying to say is that more and more of society needs to not take what the media spews to us everyday as fact and that they are really giving the news in an unbiased manner. Major news outlets in this country are only worried about their bottom line. You ask me what their bottom line is? Well that is easy to say. Their bottom line is not reporting the truth about the news, they are in business to make money. It used to be that the news gave you what was the truth in an unbiased manor, but they have now turned that into how many papers can we sell. The truth is not always news worthy and be advised that only juicy news stories sell papers and make society more interested in news.

With all of this being said, a new study which was led by Dr. Philip J. Cook of Duke University, for example, looks at the duration of the “last link – the elapsed time from the transaction that actually provided the offender with the gun in question.” Mr. Cook and his co-authors surveyed 221 people convicted of firearm-related offenses in Chicago incarcerated in state prisons about the gun they had at the time of their crime. Now we must all remember that the state of Illinois holds a rating of B+ by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. We must note that the highest rating given is an A. Those who are gun control advocates want you to believe that this means it should be a relatively safe place.

Even though Illinois’ largest city, Chicago, has long been an the opposite of this notion. The city if nothing else has had an even lengthier list of gun controls than the state itself, and it has also seen many years of terribly high rates of violent crime. At times it has been known as the Murder Capital of the country. It is believed that Chicago’s crime rates seem to be on a downward trend. Many are not sure if gun control has had anything to with this trend. It is also believed that Policing strategies and the involvement of the community are more likely contributing factors to the trend. Programs like Cure Violence are the main reason in Chicago in the past.

The study has found that more than 2/3 of the criminals obtained their primary firearm within the last six months of their arrest(68 percent), while 19.3 percent possessed the firearm five or less days. Of those interviewed, 22.6 percent never owned a firearm six months prior to their arrest. Of those who did, the majority (54.3 percent.) of them gained possession of the firearm through a purchase or trade. 56.9 percent acquired the firearm from a friend or an acquaintance.

The underlying issue, and more important issue  here has been reported by Stephen Gutowski at the Washington Free Beacon: “The CIS respondents were almost all barred from purchasing a gun from a gun store because of their prior criminal record—as a result, their guns were obtained by illegal transactions with friends, relatives, and the underground market.” Said a different way, the lengthy list of gun control laws in Illinois and Chicago have ensured that the perpetrators behavior is illegal, it did nothing to actually stop or prevent the behavior.

The point raised by Gutowski about illegal nature of the transactions negates that simply adding additional laws to the books will not deter certain armed activity that ends up with people going to prison. This goes to what I, and many others who are against punishing law abiding firearm owners with more draconian laws, have been preaching for many years now: ” Enacting new gun control laws only effects those who are law abiding and follow the laws because those who break the laws do not follow them. ” So it is incumbent upon all politicians to enforce the laws that are already enacted to combat crime and not add more laws that will in essence still have the same affect that the laws already on the books. ” If you do not enforce the laws already on the books, why create more that you are not going to enforce?

Anyone interested in reading the NRA-ILA article, please click on the link below. Criminals do not follow laws

Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court, led by Justice Gorsuch, struck down a case involving the “Violent Crime Law” which enhances penalties for violent firearm crimes. Federal prosecutors have used this law to add stiffer penalties for offenders who use a firearm during the commission of felony. This unfortunate ruling has taken away a valuable and powerful tool from federal prosecutors in which they use this law to leverage offenders to plead guilty and to cooperate with prosecutors against other offenders.  Federal prosecutors are able to increase sentences under this law, which punishes ” violent crimes,” which can be defined as ” their nature may constitute a substantial risk that physical force against another or the property of another may be used during the commission of the offense. ” The decision is one of the latest in Supreme Court cases which strike down laws that are said to be too vague. This goes all the way back to Gorsuch’s predecessor, Justice Anthony Scalia’s, decision in 2015 in the Johnson v. United States. In this case, Justice Scalia stated there was similar language in another law which was rejected on the same grounds.

The current case involves the prosecution of two defendants who were caught in a string of robberies of stores at gunpoint in Dallas, Texas in 2014. The case led to high speed chase starting at a McDonald’s drive-thru and ended when they crashed their vehicle into a concrete ditch.

We as a society have to start putting pressure on our elected officials both at the state and federal levels to start doing their jobs and enacting laws that not only have common sense but are also able to stand up to challenges of constitutionality. As stated in an earlier blog, enacting laws that do not stand up in the court system are useless and wastes time. The only way to start having an effect on criminals and their use of firearms during the commission of crimes is to start enacting laws with harsher consequences and that do not have any room to lessen the sentences of those convicted of such crimes. Targeting law abiding firearms owners is not going to stop criminals from being criminals. It is just going to allow them to have more victims out there to target for crimes.

We urge each and every citizen not only in New Jersey but every part of our great country to contact their elected representatives and let them know that the time is now to get common sense laws not only on the books but also enacted that are actually going to have an effect on violent crimes.

Anyone interested in reading the article, the link is below.

United States Supreme Court Ruling targeting Violent Crime

Governor Murphy,

I am writing you regarding the two recently passed Legislature Bills (A.1016/S.101.) These two laws were sent to your desk for your signature. These two laws are useless since there are no viable “smart guns” available on the market to be purchased. Furthermore, most of the Legislature is under the assumption that regulating firearms through more restrictions on law abiding firearms owners does not affect criminals because as you know, criminals do not follow the laws that are already enacted by the legislature. I respectfully request that you veto these bills and encourage the legislature to work on more common sense firearms laws that will combat criminals and their need to not follow the laws. By enacting such laws, you are punishing those in this state that follow the laws and so things right by following these laws. This is not what this country, nor this state and its constitution were founded on. Why don’t we start enforcing the firearms laws already on the books and start punishing the offenders/criminals who break these laws instead of making deals for lessor sentences and then turn around and enact more laws that punish citizens who follow these laws. This makes no sense to me or any other firearms owner in this state. Since when did we start punishing people for obeying the law instead of punishing those who break them.

Respectfully,

Thomas J. Wilson

New Jersey in it’s advance thinking has again shown it’s disdain for firearms owners in the state. Today, both chambers of the New Jersey Legislature passed A.1016 /S.101. This legislation in effect forces the market acceptance of smart guns by requiring firearms dealers to offer smart guns for sale. One would think that if you have to force a business to sell a product, there probably is a very strong indicator that there is no market for the product. Unfortunately, the anti-gun Legislatures in this state are not concerned with facts or evidence.  There are only two other states in the country who have passed this type of legislation, Maryland and California. I wonder why that is. The reasons why this legislation is so laughable is because currently there is not a single viable smart gun available on any market so the time and uselessness of this legislation is only another example of a legislature that is not in touch with reality. In New Jersey we have even bigger problems out there to deal with instead of spending countless time on legislation that, at this time, is useless. These laws cannot be implemented for the simple reason that there are not any “smart guns” on the market. Way to go New Jersey.

In 2002, New Jersey Legislature passed a smart gun law that stated “once smart guns were certified as viable, only the handguns that used the “smart gun” technology would be aloud to be sold in New Jersey. In essence, this is just another way to just ban traditional handguns. Almost two decades later, there are no meaningful improvements in the firearms industry that could or would lead to the production of “smart guns.” All this is doing is making the market accept inferior products. What the anti-gun legislatures fail to realize is that they may be able to force firearm’s dealers to place these “smart guns” on their shelves, but you cannot force firearm’s owners to buy them.

The sad truth to all of this is that this is just another page in New Jersey’s disdain for firearms owners in New Jersey. We encourage all firearms owners to contact Governor Murphy’s office and demand that he veto this legislation since it is so useless. You can only shake your head in disbelief at the great State of New Jersey.

Up to the is point in time, we have been working on getting the business up and running. I am certified through the National Rifle Association to teach Home Firearms Safety and Basic Pistol. I just recently attended a Basic Rifle Class. This class is a prerequisite for the Rifle Instructor Course. This course is scheduled in the beginning of October 2019. At the completion of that course, I will be able to offer Basic Rifle Courses also. I apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause some who are looking for more classes. As the classes come up and the logistics of taking these Instructor course will allow us to offer more classes to fit specific needs.

Please bear with me as I work hard to get to these Instructor Courses so that we may be better qualified to offer other classes to those of you who are looking to take these courses. I am also looking at the logistics of taking the Refuse to be a Victim On-Line course to be certified to teach this course. I am hopeful to have this course offered by the end of the summer. I am also looking into taking a Hunter Education Course that I hope to be able to offer to Hunters for this up coming hunting season. This course is also an On-Line course. I would like to have this course completed also by the end of the summer. Keep checking back and I will keep the site updated so everyone will know when these courses will be offered.