By Cody McLaughlin
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Once again, Save Jerseyans, we find the Garden State directly in the middle of a confrontation over the Second Amendment, and once again state Democrats are flatly on the wrong side of it, busy trying to score political points with their increasingly far-left base.
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So What Happened?
A few days ago, anti-gun extremists blew up over the planned dissemination of 3D-printed gun plans over the internet and New Jersey, led by Attorney General Gurbir Grewald, gave us every tired excuse and liberal trope in the book as to why New Jersey’s law-abiding Second Amendment enthusiast citizens could not be trusted with these plans.
Meanwhile, even the liberal media is questioning the claims of alarmists who claim these guns will be “undetectable” or otherwise especially dangerous. They are also, surprisingly, taking up for the side of free speech activists who have decried the Obama administration’s attempts to ban the dissemination of this information simply because the State Department said it was not “previously public information.” Even Slate, one of the most reliably liberal sources on the internet, has an issue with using export laws to address 3D-printed firearms.
Meanwhile a federal judge in Seattle granted a temporary injunction against the publisher of these plans until August 10th.
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Dispelling The Myths
Addressing first the claim that these guns will be “undetectable” and will be used in an airport, will make it through TSA or will beat other armed security checkpoints – I say first that, while the gun is made of plastic, bullets are not. More than that, though, entirely plastic weapons are already illegal and 3D printing is entirely possible with metal – not to mention the fact that an industrial 3D printer capable of printing such a weapon is wholly out of the price range of the common criminal, often costing tens of thousands of dollars. Compare that to common criminals and murderers in our cities right here in New Jersey, who can purchase an untraceable gun right off the street for less than I spent at the bar last Friday night.
Basement and hobbyist gunsmiths already have access to technology, parts, and resources that will render a gun of a much higher quality than any one that can be printed in plastic off a machine. In fact, guns really aren’t all that hard to assemble (the technology is a couple hundred years old, after all, and requires no advanced computer targeting systems or chips or anything), and there is a plethora of information out there for the hobbyist gun collector/smith to create their own wares, parts and accessories.
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Gun Owners Aren’t The Enemy
Liberals will try to say this is another loophole around the system, but the facts are the facts – the Second Amendment is here to stay and, contrary to popular belief, whether you make the gun at home, buy it off the street or however else you obtain one – if you are a prohibited person it is still against the law for you to possess that firearm. And as tired as the trope is, it still stands true: criminals don’t care about gun laws.
What we should be celebrating instead (and what better time than now, during National Shooting Sports Month) is the strong culture around the Second Amendment that promoted self-reliance, innovation and such a passion for these sports which can do a lot of good in communities. The Second Amendment gives every American an opportunity to defend themselves during the precious seconds when authorities are minutes away, to put meat on the table for outdoorsmen, and has protected our freedoms from the invasion of foreign powers since our country was born.
Politicians and law enforcement in New Jersey and nationwide should be cracking down on the root problems of violence rather than scapegoating law-abiding gun owners with more straw man arguments and scare tactics about the latest technological fad.
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