By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Did you hear about Tom Moran’s latest meltdown over at the Star-Ledger, Save Jerseyans?
Only days after reversing its position on an election that’s been over for months, a bizarre stunt that made us question not just its judgment but sanity as well, the Moran-led editorial board of New Jersey’s largest daily newspaper saw fit to slam the entire state of Wyoming on Tuesday for challenging New Jersey’s grossly unconstitutional anti-concealed carry law in federal court.
The exact admonishment from Moran & Co. was “butt out.”
Classy. And Chris Christie is supposed to be the crass jerk?
We’ve known for some time that these media-types have little to no respect for limited, constitutional government as a concept, folks. They’d like to repeal the Second Amendment but are satisfied gradually undermining it whenever the opportunity presents itself. Their policies aren’t pragmatic but their political strategies are a master’s course in practicality and patience. Still, Moran’s alleged majority is less impressive than he’d have you believe. His screed downplays the fact that it’s 19 states, not just Wyoming, that believe New Jersey’s shockingly hostile posture towards fundamental constitutional rights represents a danger to all. Half the country, Tom!
Like a dog with a bone, condescending liberals can’t help but condescend to us less mortals…
The only meat in the Ledger’s bitter sandwich came at the end:
“Wyoming, where anyone can carry a gun without a license or permit, had the sixth-highest rate of gun deaths per capita in 2010. It supplied the 12th-highest number of crime guns to other states the year before.”
“Statistic” #2 is extremely controversial, Save Jerseyans, but it suffices to say that, ironically, The Star-Ledger‘s own website debunked this argument back in 2012 with an interactive map showing that only 2 of the 2,112 guns used in crimes and traced by police to their respective sources that year were linked to a Wyoming origin, whereas 56 guns came from New York and 12 weapons hailed from Connecticut, our neighbors who share with us some of the nation’s strictest anti-Second Amendment laws.
Read your newspaper’s own website before opening your mouth, Tom! And appreciate the absurdity of telling other states to “butt out” of New Jersey gun control debates when most of the big money behind gun control efforts inside New Jersey are, in fact, not from New Jersey. Ever heard of Michael Bloomberg?
Regarding “statistic” #1, issues ranging from rural/suburban/urban cultural differences to the ever-present poverty factor figure heavily into any serious comparative gun crime discussion (which the exceptionally brief Ledger editorial is at only 169 words), but we don’t even need to get that far into the weeds to dismantle this one either.
Let’s look at two more takeaways from NJ.com’s own aforementioned interactive map, unabridged by your Blogger-in-Chief:
- The majority of weapons recovered came from New Jersey’s cities: Newark, Camden, Jersey City, Paterson, Trenton, Atlantic City, Elizabeth, Vineland, Irvington and East Orange comprised the top 10 and accounting for 1,959 guns. Another 341 cities and towns accounted for 1,636 guns, but the ATF declined to release town-by-town statistics.
- While new legislation has tried to rein in magazine capacity or restrict access to high-powered rifles, the majority of crime guns recovered in 2012 were handguns. Pistols and revolvers made up a combined 2,903 of the total guns recovered.
What have we been telling you forever, Save Jerseyans?
Let’s review: (1) the worst gun crime tends to concentrate in places, like Chicago and Newark, with the strictest anti-gun laws, and (2) the Left’s war on so-called “assault” weapons misses the fact that criminals routinely use handguns, bats, clubs, and other implements to wreck havoc which aren’t touched by any liberal legislative proposals to curb “gun violence.”
You don’t need to take my word for it here at Save Jersey; again, it’s over at NJ.com.
I prefer a results-oriented analysis when it comes to the great gun debate. If our evaluation is restricted to holding politicians accountable for the death and destruction transpiring on their own watch, as opposed to political correctness and hyper-partisan rhetoric, then Tom Moran and the editorial board should’ve apologized for endorsing Cory Booker last year, too, on the basis of the violent crime explosion during his tenure as Newark’s part-time mayor, full-time tweeter.
That’s be the logical approach. Unfortunately for our political system, the mainstream media is still dominated by arrogant, stubborn, unimaginative old hippies like Tom Moran who’d rather go to their graves blindly believing that liberalism works than truly serving their readers by dispassionately gathering, parsing and reporting facts.
Thank God for new media and websites like our own that focus on the question which The Star-Ledger refuses to confront: why Wyoming is the 10th fastest growing state in America while New Jersey is limping along at #36.
Butt out? Get real. We should be asking them for tips!
The best I can say is that we have a Constitution to protect us from guys like Tom Moran, Save Jerseyans…
Liberal Rag…canceled it years ago.
The entire anti-gun movement receives tons of help from out of state. Here are some organizations and their out of state roots/ties.
Mayors against illegal guns, headed by New Yorker Michael Bloomberg.
Moms Demand Action, headed by Indiana resident Shannon Watts.
Gabby Giffords/Mark Kelly, from Arizona.
Bryan Miller and ceasefire/heeding God’s call/whatever fake organization from Pennsylvania.
Is there anyone in the state of NJ who supports the gun haters?
The Star-Ledger seems to pride itself in its extreme hypocrisy. Out of state activism bad, except when it furthers the liberal, gun grabbing, anti-freedom and quite frankly anti-American agenda. But maybe it’s a good sign. Maybe they see the writing on the wall, and this is their last hurrah.