Why Vote NO on NJ bill A4769 / S3214

The current bill proposes the following unconstitutional laws…

-Ban carry in common public places by labeling them as “sensitive places.” Includes parks, beaches, restaurants, theaters, stadiums, arenas, and many other common public places.; -Ban carry inside one’s own car; -Ban carry at public gatherings; -Ban carry on all private property automatically, unless the property owner specifically posts notices specifically allowing it; -Significantly increase fees for purchaser credentials and carry permits, discriminating against low-income citizens; -Mandate liability insurance (which may not even be available) as a pre-condition to exercising carry rights; -Mandate a new training requirement beyond the already-difficult one that has existed for many decades; -Use past online posts as grounds to deny purchase and carry permits; -Allow denial of permits based on purely subjective factors like someone’s “character” or “temperament.” To add insult to injury, the latest amendments to this legislation now create an elite class of public officials who can carry without having to first obtain a permit, and who are not bound by “sensitive places” restrictions that apply to everyone else.

 

I’m a first responder, former bouncer, bodyguard, lifelong defensive tactics instructor and inventor of the Bodyguard Bulletproof Backpack. The reason I am successful is because bad things happened to good people every day. While we like to fantasize that people can be trained to defend themselves UNARMED against multiple, armed assailants…this is preposterous. I would not train my 84 year old mother to defend herself using only empty hands against younger, determined attackers.

Instead I teach her to use multiple layers of defense including awareness, non-lethal technologies (pepper spray and personal alarms) and then, yes firearms. The reason I am successful is because the police can’t be everywhere, and as Uvalde and Stoneman – Douglass showed us, even those who take an other to protect and serve…tend to only protect and serve themselves. Both of these instances had trained men facing untrained, teenage men.

After the Garden State Plaza active shooter incident in 2013 I created the Bodyguard Armored Backpack and have continued to develop more armored products so citizens and school administrators can remain protected against these horrific situations.

Every responsible citizen understands that you are responsible for your own security.  The police are not your bodyguard as seen in the Supreme Court decision Town of Castle Rock v Gonzales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_of_Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales.

This bill castrates people’s ability to protect themselves in places they are attacked most – in an around public transportation, parking garages and parks.

How does this bill help the single mother living in Camden doing shift work to support her children? How does increasing the fees help those less fortunate in communities that need to know how to protect themselves the most?

Radical thought – putting a program together to help people in high crime area know how to protect themselves properly. In fact, firearms played a critical role in the civil rights movement (https://ammo.com/articles/guns-nra-and-american-civil-rights-movement-guide) and since has been stripped from the communities that need it most.

Look, I’m not under the illusion that there will not be accidents or misuse of firearms by the newly armed citizenry. There will be. To quote Thomas Sowell, there are no solutions, only trade offs.

At present we have a mental health issue showing itself as a gun problem. We have defended the police and continue to remove the right of citizens to protect themselves in high crime areas. Areas that have been plagued with crime for decades upon decades. Fact is, what we’re doing isn’t working, time to try something else.

Imagine is the good people of Camden, Paterson, Atlantic City, Irvington, Long Branch, Salem, Asbury Park, Penns Grove and Wildwood were adequately trained and prepared?

At present armed shooters have stopped 34% of Active Shooter attacks (https://www.nraila.org/articles/20221017/cprc-fbi-wrong-armed-citizens-stopped-at-least-34-of-active-shooter-attacks).

Imagine the death toll if they weren’t armed….imagine what it would be if more people were armed and trained?

Stay Safe.