New Jersey competing with Illinois for greatest idiocy among lawmakers

Yesterday, I wrote about the VPC's Josh Sugarmann's strange attempt to use the tragedy that didn't happen at Fort Dix as justification for--you guessed it--yet more gun laws. Even more oddly, the new gun laws Sugarmann proposed would have banned not the guns that the would-be killers were planning to use, but guns they had practiced with, but had apparently rejected for the actual attack, in favor of something with more firepower. As incomprehensible as that argument is, some New Jersey legislators have apparently decided to try it as well, to advance a bill that would ban .50 caliber rifles.

These guns have even less to do with the planned attack on Fort Dix than SKS rifles do--not only did they apparently not plan to use .50 caliber rifles (which would have been a rather odd choice), they hadn't practiced with them either. Far be it from civilian disarmament advocates to let a news story go by without attempting to tie it into their hysterical calls for more draconian gun laws, though.

The lawmakers said their measure (A-3998) has gained increased significance after six men were charged Tuesday with planning an assault on Fort Dix with the goal of "killing as many soldiers as possible," using military-grade weapons, like mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and AK-47s.

In another article, he tries to claim that the attack (that never happened) would have been much worse if it had (not) been carried out with .50 caliber rifles, rather than (not) being carried out with AK-47s.

"As unnerving as the Fort Dix terrorism plot was, it could have been all the more worse if the weapons of choice for alleged assailants had been .50-caliber assault guns instead of AK-47s," said Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D., Mercer)

"More worse?" Is English a second language for this genius? Never mind that the idea here was to kill many soldiers quickly, which would be quite difficult to do by shooting them one at a time from a great distance--the point is that the bad guys had planned to use guns, and we have a bill here that would ban some guns, so let's . . . ban some guns.

Perhaps recognizing the tenuous nature of the connection they were trying to claim, one of the assemblymen tried to bolster the case for a ban with other arguments.

"In a post-9/11 society, there is simply no reason for .50-caliber weapons to be available for civilian use," said Gusciora (D-Mercer).

Refresh my memory--in the five and a half years since the September 11th attacks, how much carnage has been wrought in the U.S. by people using .50 caliber rifles? None, huh? No hurry, I suppose. I guess Assemblyman Gusciora was all for civilian ownership of .50 caliber rifles before September 11, 2001.

Of course, there's always gang violence.

"With the continued rise in gang violence across the state and the fact that New Jersey possesses numerous chemical plants and rail yards vulnerable to attack by .50-caliber weapons, we have a serious responsibility to stop these inherently deadly weapons from falling into the wrong hands."

Ah, yes--the scourge of "gang sniping," and gangs' famous hatred of trains, is certainly something that needs to be addressed.

Go ahead, pass your foolish, draconian law. See how long it takes for someone to start building and selling rifles chambered for some .499 caliber cartridge, just as powerful as the .50 BMG (maybe more so). If you can get the votes to ban that, someone will come out with a .498 then .497, etc. You can inconvenience us, but you can't stop us.