Some have said that the second amendment sanctuary resolution, which is under consideration in Mt. Olive Township and other municipalities in New Jersey, is pointless as it changes no law and is just the venting of those opposed to any common sense gun legislation, but it is not.  Its point is to harden the lines of division in our communities and thus the partisan divide, and, to sell more guns.  It is an instrument comprised of fiction, fantasy and paranoia.  Plus, a large measure of deception.

Hey guys and gals; no one is coming to take your guns and you really can get along and with magazines of 10 bullets or less.

This group of frustrated gun owners wants to allow people with serious acute mental health dysfunction to have access to weapons even if they are an immediate danger to themselves or others; they are opposed to “red flag” laws which allow law enforcement to disarm the crazed guy down the street who has beaten his family and then threatened to shoot his wife and kids.

In their resolution they want the municipality to say:

“The governing body of (name of town) opposes gun control, ‘gun safety’ legislation, or “red flag laws”, State, Federal, or local.”

They also oppose universal background checks and background checks for private sales.  In essence, they want no controls or accountability for weapons ownership.  They want the sale of assault weapons to be legal.

This, or similar, resolutions have been passed in more than 400 locations across the country and in that we find the hand of both the NRA and the weapons manufacturing industry although the difference is hard to discern.  A drop in firearms sales is the probable cause.  The National Shooting Sports Foundation estimated 2018 sales at 13.1 million firearms, down from 14 million the previous year and down 16.5 percent from record 2016 sales of 15.7 million.  That’s a large amount of revenue lost and the gun industry has found a different way of sparking sales.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, almost 40,000 Americans were killed with a firearm last year.  This includes suicides as well as accidental discharges and more than 11,000 homicides.  Despite the fact that some states around New Jersey have very lax gun laws and somewhere between 70% and 90% of weapons used in crimes come from states like Virginia.  New Jersey is safer from gun violence than 45 of the 50 other states because it has the second strongest common-sense gun safety laws in the nation.

The resolution says its “intent is to send a message to Trenton that law-abiding firearms owners in New Jersey are under constitutional attack.”  Does this mean they are under attack by the constitution?  The second amendment is part and parcel of the US Constitution and to overturn it would require a constitutional amendment which simply isn’t going to happen.

The resolution cites the U.S. Supreme Court in the District of Columbia v. Heller, which affirmed that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is not connected in any way to the service of the militia”

That’s not what the Heller decision said.  Heller said that residents of the District of Columbia could have a handgun or rifle in their home for self-defense without the gun-owner having to belong to a militia.  That’s all it said.  It had no impact on any other state or territory and it specifically said that weapons regulation was lawful.

Useful statistic:  People without guns shot zero people today.

Local and county governments and law enforcement need to stand for common sense and just say no to this or any other resolution like it.  Americans overwhelmingly support common sense gun laws.