NJ Policy of State Mandated Victimhood Strikes Again

Old Bridge, NJ –-(Ammoland.com)- In yet another in a laundry list of examples in just the last five years, a gunman opened fire against helpless and defenseless Citizens; this time at an Old Bridge NJ Pathmark Store, killing two before taking his own life.

One of the deceased was a 23-year-old who had he lived in virtually any other state in the Country, would at least have had the option of choosing to obtain a Carry Permit for a handgun and might have had at least some chance of defending himself and the other victim instead of being forced, as a law-abiding Citizen, to have no other option than hiding in fear and praying for a quick death.

You see, the 23-year-old followed NJ’s draconian, Anti Self Defense, Anti Gun laws, while his criminal killer clearly did not. And what did following the law and waiting for police to come to his aid get him? A body bag and a funeral, nothing more. Certainly not even so much as a fighting chance to survive the attacker’s assault.

The same thing happened over a decade ago in Camden NJ, routinely one of the most dangerous cities in America. Christina Eberle, returning from work in Center City Philadelphia late at night via the Patco Rail line got off at the Camden Terminal to pick up her car and was accosted and kidnapped by two men in the parking lot. A bystander in the lot witnessed the crime in progress and dutifully called 911 to report “two men dragging a kicking and screaming woman into a car”.

For a variety of reasons, it was later discovered that the 911 operator failed to properly route the call and Ms. Eberle was found dead the next day. In both the Camden case and the Pathmark one, and indeed many, many others I have no personal knowledge of the eventual victim’s feelings about the right to keep and bear arms. But what is crystal clear is that in all these cases, the law-abiding Citizens chose to follow the law, while their killers did not and were arbitrarily denied even the right to make a choice over whether they carried a weapon for self-defense or not, believing the State lie that the police would protect them.

They were denied their right to live by not having the means to defend themselves from criminal attack.

Regardless of your personal feelings over firearms, read that again and let it sink in, and understand what it means. Innocent, Law Abiding Citizens in NJ have over and over and over been denied the right to live, the right to make a choice, the right to not be served upon a smorgasbord of State-Mandated potential Victims for a criminal class the same State Govt has proven time and again they are incapable of controlling, or stopping when they are bent on criminal acts.

Right now, as this is written, NJ Attorney General Jeffry Chiesa, continuing a long and sordid tradition of former AG Paula Dow and other former AG’s for over 50 years; has a brief before the US Court of Appeals, defending NJ’s ridiculous, ethically and intellectually bankrupt and immoral position that law-abiding NJ residents have no right to defend themselves from criminals outside their home.

Much is made of the idea that any Government’s first and overriding responsibility is to provide for the safety of its Citizens. NJ’s current restrictions on self-defense and firearms carry rights do not do that! All available evidence shows exactly the opposite. How many more innocents must be brutally victimized and or killed before the voters of NJ send a loud and clear message to their so-called leaders in Trenton that they will not be victims anymore and demand NJ follow the vast majority of the rest of the Country and strike these Anti-Self Defense, unjust laws from the books?

Two of history’s most noted Non-Violent Civil Rights Activists had something relevant to say about immoral or unjust laws.

“An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.” ~ Mahatma Ghandi

“One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Henry David Thoreau had this to say.:

“Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them?”

The Dept of Justice tells us that the average response time to a call to 911 is 4 to 7 minutes, while the average interaction time between criminal attacker and victim is 90 seconds. Numerous Courts across the country, including multiple Supreme Court rulings, have universally found that the Govt/Police have no duty to protect individual citizens, and cannot be held liable for their failure to do so.

As township and State budgets continue to be hammered and Police Dept manpower continues to be cut, this situation of being left defenseless at the hands of criminals will only increase exponentially.

Every justification for NJ residents to demand Trenton draft laws that recognize their right to self-defense both inside and more importantly outside the home can be found in this article and from numerous other sources.

1. You have an unalienable RIGHT to defend your life or the lives of your loved ones, regardless of where you are, so long as you yourself are not engaged in criminal activity.
2. You have an unalienable RIGHT to purchase, own, and carry whatever tool or tools you, as an individual feels, is most likely to help you defend yourself, and that includes pepper spray, tasers, or firearms!
3. The police have no duty to protect you, and they CANT protect you when they are miles away and the criminal is feet away.
4. Laws prohibiting self-defense are the very definition of immoral and unjust and run counter to the govt’s responsibility to do whatever is necessary to help their Citizens stay safe and protect themselves.

Noted social theorist and professor at UCLA and Cornell Thomas Sowell offer a damning indictment of the mindset of the politicians in Trenton with regards to this subject.

“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

And that is exactly the current state of affairs in Trenton. The very people who write and vote to enact the myriad of laws prohibiting self-defense rights bear no cost whatsoever for their wrongheadedness. Many of them have 24/7 armed security paid for by you the taxpayer, while they simultaneously adamantly deny the same right to the very people that pay their salaries. The rest can easily get a coveted NJ Carry Permit.

One of the worst kepy secrets in the State is that if your a politician, or connected to one, or a high level donor to one or famous, a Carry Permit to defend yourself is a mere phone call and rubber stamp away.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! It is long past time to demand the Trenton Politicians respect your rights to defend yourself and insist that they immediately draft Legislation moving NJ into line with the majority of the rest of the Country and out of the Dark Ages and provide a mechanism that every law-abiding citizen has the right to self-defense, including a firearm if that’s what they chose, and if the State feels otherwise, then the burden to prove that be placed on the State, where it rightly belongs, instead of the Citizen as it is now.

About Dan Roberts

More articles, commentary, and information by D. Roberts are available at That Every Man Be Armed.com