A letter by Thomas B. Carney, published in the Star Ledger, points out the ineffectiveness and wastefulness of gun control laws:
In a July 27 piece, Newark Mayor Cory Booker mentions government’s right to take reasonable measures to limit gun owner ship. But governments have no rights. They have powers; people have rights. Besides, there are few reasonable measures a government may take to limit the people’s exercise of any right.
Booker gives lip service to D.C. vs. Heller, but then proposes a wish list of even tighter restrictions against citizens who want to exercise the right this decision acknowledged. Fees, tests and limits like those Booker wants to encumber would-be gun owners with were enacted by the Southern states after the fall of the Confederacy to prevent freed men from voting. These infringements were struck down one by one.
If Newark and New Jersey, both cash-strapped, want to squander money in litigation over D.C. vs. Heller that is sure to fail, taxpayers can’t stop them; taxpayers don’t control anything here. The money would be better spent on police, education, health and housing. The tragedy is that Booker, Jon Corzine, Frank Lautenberg et al. claim this anti-gun nonsense fights crime, even after other venues have proved quite the opposite.
— Thomas B. Carney, Landing