The People’s Republic of New Jersey Gun Review, Part 1:

The People’s Republic of New Jersey Gun Review? What gives? As all this “stuff” was accumulating I decided that I would read some Prepper fiction, and in every single book they have a gun fight.  Sometimes, a bunch of gun fights!

New Jersey = Gun Trouble 

Now in all the hurricanes and tornadoes I’ve been through, I’ve never needed a gun.  During 9/11, I didn’t need a gun.  The airplane hijackers were kind enough to kill themselves for me; a gun would not have helped.

However,  I haven’t been carjacked yet, (Newark, New Jersey is the carjacking capital of the world!) but as they say “the day is young”, so I decided I needed one.

Acquiring a gun in New Jersey is not the simple process you might expect if you live in a place like Arizona.  In Arizona you might have a water problem, but no way are guns a problem. 

Here in the People’s Republic of New Jersey, it is just the opposite.  Water is available.  😊  Guns not so much.  ☹  My New Jersey wife declared “No Guns in the House!”.  Then my daughter in law declared to my grown son “No Guns in the House!”

No idea… well, not yet anyway

At this point I had no idea where to purchase a gun anyhow.  My son and I discussed the situation and decided that guns were the one part of prepping he thought he’d really like.  So we went to a sporting goods store and started asking questions and learned about New Jersey gun laws.  New Jersey doesn’t like guns, and the legislature is under the impression they can ban them if they do it a little bit at a time.  So far they have been right.  ☹

Highly dangerous and sale restricted!

First, we had to apply for New Jersey Firearms Owner ID card (FOID).  The law says that once you apply for this card at your local gestapo office between 9 and 5 on a work day, they have to provide the card within a maximum of a month.  That really means it will take a minimum of a month to get your card.  Sometimes it will take a year or more.  If you want to buy anything firearms related, like a box of .22 ammo, you need this card.

From the “I kid you not” department

You even need a FOID for BB guns!

NJ firearm!

After all, you might put your eye out!  They’re just looking out for your safety.  😊  If you want to buy a handgun, you also need a Pistol Purchase Permit (PPP).  This is another one month wait.  Once you get your PPP, you can only buy one handgun, and you need to use the permit within 90 days, or it expires and you get to start all over.

Requires a FOID and a PPP in NJ!

On to the FFL

I finally figured out that what you do is buy the gun and leave it with the FFL.  The FFL will keep the gun, which you have paid for, while you get your permit.  If they didn’t do this they’d have a hard time selling guns.  Free storage, such a deal.  The handgun sits there while you go through the permit process, and then when you get your permit, you can take your handgun home and put it in your safe.

Your other option is to buy something so common the model is always available.  I am now a Glock fan.  Glocks are always available at the local FFL. 

Later, when the Sandy Hook shooting took place, someone spent $3,000 on a run of the mill AR-15 and traded in a brand new Glock.  I bought the used, but unused, Glock.  I was quite pleased with how my paranoia was serving me.  I needed a gun and a gun scare causes a good deal to fall in my lap.  😊

Permitted, but not permitted

So my son and I had New Jersey permits, but no guns.  We still had to deal with the wives.  The idea of crossing my wife really made me paranoid!  My son had a bit of paranoia too, even though he wasn’t in the World Trade Center.  It did take him all day to find out I was okay though so I guess he has “sympathy paranoia”.

I decided to try something innovative and I went out and bought a gun safe . . . a large 900 lb. gun safe.  So my wife comes home and sees this huge safe and I say “How do you like it?” and she says “Looks nice.  What are you going to put in it, jewelry?”  Mind you this thing weighs 900 lbs.  I respond, “Sure, but I can’t give you the combination until you take a firearms safety course.”  She looked at me like I was about to buy another generator.  I never thought to ask what the generator weighs.

I survived the experience, and started trying to fill up the safe with, *ahem* jewelry.  Since this tactic worked, my son did the same thing.  Every now and then my wife asks “How many guns do you have in there?”  I reply “Are you interested in a firearms safety course?”

Jackboots

There was a case here in New Jersey awhile back where a family got their 12 year old a .22 rifle and posted a picture of his beaming face on Facebook.  The Dept. of Youth Services and a bunch of NJ gestapo showed up at the house and demanded access to the safe and threatened to take the boy away.  The two responses were “That would be kidnapping.” and “Do you have a warrant?”

They did enter the house without the warrant, but all guns were in their safe, . . . their large locked safe.  This family’s guns would have been seized if the New Jersey gestapo could have opened that safe.  The threat to seize the kid was just a ruse to get the family to open the safe so they could steal this dangerous .22.  After several hours of stand off the New Jersey gestapo left and the family became an internet sensation, providing this 12 year old with his 15 minutes of fame.

The story went viral.

Did I mention I am a Paranoid Prepper?

This reinforced my paranoia.  900 lbs. seems about right.  Oh yeah, that is 900 lbs. empty.  Try to put that puppy in the back of a Crown Vic!  😊  I have no idea what it weighs full.  If the New Jersey gestapo want to move my safe, I want to watch.  I will ask for a liability release that says I am not responsible for hernias first.

It’s hard on a face to get laughed in

Now having been this successful, you may be thinking I should go get a CCW.  In a free state that would make sense.  Unfortunately, if you go back to the New Jersey gestapo office and say you want to apply for a CCW, they will laugh at you.  (I am not kidding.  This has happened to other people dumb enough to apply.)

Just because the New Jersey gestapo does not issue CCWs does not mean they don’t enjoy a good joke.  One guy was kidnapped and thrown in the trunk of a car then tossed out in Ohio because the kidnappers had picked up the wrong guy.  He decided to apply for a CCW.  They laughed at him.  Supposedly the kidnappers think they made a mistake leaving him alive and are looking for him, but the NJ gestapo thinks he has no “justifiable need”. ☹

So now I own guns that live in a 900 lb. safe.  If WROL happens I’ll be armed.

Until then my safe is armed.  😊