On Monday, November 16, the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee passedS3249 in a vote of 3-2 along partisan lines, but not before gun rights leaders sparred with bill sponsor Senator Loretta Weinberg, at one point directly challenging her to pledge never again support or encourage a ban on conventional handguns (she tried, but just couldn't do it), and to convert legislator security details to the exclusive use of smart guns!

While S3249 would roll back the ban on all conventional handguns from New Jersey's 2002 "smart gun" law, the bill is badly tainted because it swaps in a new mandate in its place forcing every New Jersey firearms dealer to stock and display a smart gun for sale - essentially an effort to compel market acceptance of the technology instead of letting the free market decide. 

The effort to coerce smart guns onto the market by bullying dealers suggests that politicians will be back with their ban on all conventional handguns soon after an artificial market for the new and unproven technology has been created. ANJRPC had asked the committee to amend the bill to remove the new mandate.

Several anti-gun groups testified in person, along with several gun rights leaders, including ANJRPC Executive Director Scott Bach, Jake McGuigan of NSSF, Bob Viden, Patricia Blazer of NJSFSC, and Craig Dear. Darin Goens of NRA-ILA was out of state but supplied written testimony.

The official state recording of the hearing is available here. Scroll to Monday, November 16 and click "listen." Testimony on S3249 begins at approximately the 16:00 mark. Scott Bach's testimony challenging Senator Weinberg to pledge to never again support or encourage a ban on conventional handguns (among other things) begins at approximately the 45:55 mark.

For more background on the smart gun issue, please see this recent ANJRPC email alert on the subject.

S3249 is being fast-tracked and will move to the full Senate quickly. PLEASE IMMEDIATELY CONTACT MEMBERS OF THE STATE SENATE AND TELL THEM TO:

1. Amend S3249 to remove the mandate on gun dealers;

2. Amend S3249 to require the exclusive use of smart guns for all State House and legislator security details; 

3. Repeal the provision of the existing smart gun law preventing politicians and the government from being sued if mandated smart gun technology fails; and

4. Publicly pledge that they will never support or encourage a ban on conventional handguns in the future

She can't do anything without stacking the deck.  Wonder how much smart gun companies contributed to the fossil to get a foot hold in the industry. This bill gives then what they want, a smart gun for sale in every FFL, and then back comes the original bill.  

What about home-based FFL with no displays and no inventory? Are they required to buy and peddle these Edsels too?

After today's NJ.com article, home based FFLs will be on the hit list. Look for their demise by the Democrats in the near future with local zoning changes and I would venture to say state legislation.

The NRA-ILA has a petition to defeat Senate Bill 3249:

 

http://act.nraila.org/Tg7SviZ

I think this part is still in the bill:

 

No make or model of a handgun shall be deemed to be a "personalized handgun" unless the Attorney General has determined, through testing or other reasonable means, that the handgun meets any reliability standards that the manufacturer may require for its commercially available handguns that are not personalized or, if the manufacturer has no such reliability standards, the handgun meets the reliability standards generally used in the industry for commercially available handguns.

So this bill cannot be enforced until the "smart guns" have been shown to meet the same reliability requirements as normal firearms. It's not even a "smart gun" until it has passed. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk