New Jersey Assemblyman Ronald Dancer is sponsoring a measure that would allow churches, synagogues and mosques to select what he calls a "qualified person" to bring a concealed handgun into services.
A Republican assemblyman believes you'll feel safer if the worshiper in the next pew is carrying a concealed weapon.
Ronald Dancer is sponsoring a measure that would allow churches, synagogues and mosques to select what he calls a "qualified person" to bring a concealed handgun into services.
What could possibly go wrong?
The lawmaker, whose district covers parts of Burlington, Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean counties, points out, correctly, that places of worship are a terrorist target.
But he's way off base in his proposed solution.
Lawmaker says someone with a gun should protect N.J. churches
Dancer introduced his bill following two mass shootings at U.S. churches in the past three years: the killing of 26 people by a gunman at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, last November, and the slaughter of nine congregants at a black church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015.
State Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) had a classic response to the misguided proposal: "Oh my god, you're kidding me."
With all due respect to the NRA's Wayne "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" LaPierre, introducing guns into our state's (or any state's) sacred places does not decrease the threat of bloodshed. It multiplies it.
Evidence is growing that adding more firepower to an active shooting scene, with all its attendant confusion and mass hysteria, only increases the odds of innocent people being killed in a hail of bullets.
In the Texas tragedy, for example, more than 40 people were shot before an armed neighbor intervened.
The good news is that Assembly Bill 1695 is not likely to go very far in a Legislature controlled by Democrats. And even if it did buck the odds and pass, Gov. Phil Murphy is certainly not inclined to sign the measure after calling for stricter gun safety laws in the state.
The truth is, New Jersey has much to be proud of when it comes to standing up to the all-powerful gun lobby, harking back to the administration of Jim Florio in the early 1990s.
More recently, U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12th District) led our congressional delegation in a fierce campaign against an NRA-sponsored effort to expand an individual's rights to carry a concealed weapon across state lines.
Dancer's bill was referred to the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee in early January. With any luck, it will die a quiet death there.
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