SPECIAL TO THE SHOTGUN NEWS<\/p>\n
Back on Nov. 15, \u201cReason\u201d magazine headlined their story, by senior editor Radley Balko, \u201cNew Jersey man gets seven years for being a responsible gun owner.\u201d <\/p>\n
Sounds a bit far-fetched — unless you\u2019ve ever had dealings with the anti-gun madness in some of our coastal states, where illegal alien gang members carry with impunity, while honest citizens trying to keep up with a dizzying rat\u2019s nest of laws find \u201czero tolerance.\u201d <\/p>\n
Brian Aitken, 26, was born and raised in New Jersey, but moved to Colorado several years ago. He had no criminal record. <\/p>\n
In Colorado he married his now ex-wife, also originally from New Jersey. The two had a son. When the marriage broke up, Atiken\u2019s wife and infant son moved back east. Aitken eventually decided to move back as well, in order to be closer to his son. Beginning in late 2008, he took the first of several back-and-forth trips as he sold his house in Colorado, moved his possessions across the country, found a job and a new place to live. Until he could find a new apartment, he stored his belongings at his parents\u2019 home in Burlington County. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn December 2008 Aitken made a final trip back to Colorado to collect the last of his possessions, including the three handguns he had legally purchased in Colorado — transactions that required him to pass a federal background check,\u201d Balko of Reason reports. <\/p>\n
\u201cAitken and his friend Michael Torries had found an apartment in Hoboken, and Torries accompanied Aitken to Colorado to help with the last leg of the move. According to testimony Torries later gave at Aitken\u2019s trial, before leaving Colorado Aitken researched and printed out New Jersey and federal gun laws to be sure he moved his firearms legally. Richard Gilbert, Aitken\u2019s trial attorney, says Aitken also called the New Jersey State Police to get advice on how to legally transport his guns, although Burlington County Superior Court Judge James Morley didn\u2019t allow\u201d the jury to hear testimony about that phone call at Aitken\u2019s trial. <\/p>\n
The trouble began in January 2009, when Aitken drove to his parents\u2019 house to pick up some belongings. He\u2019d grown distraught over tensions with his ex-wife, who according to Aitken had been refusing to let him see his son. His mother, Sue Aitken, grew worried about his mental state. <\/p>\n
In an interview with a New Jersey radio program, she said she works with children who have mental health problems, and she\u2019s always been taught to call police as a precaution when someone appears despondent and shows any sign that he might harm himself. <\/p>\n
I bet she won\u2019t be doing that anymore. <\/p>\n
\u201cConcerned about her son, she called 911 but then thought better of it and hung up,\u201d according to the magazine. \u201cThe police responded anyway. When they arrived at her home, Sue Aitken told them her concerns and the police called Brian Aitken on his cell phone. They asked him to turn around and come back to his parents\u2019 house. He complied. <\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough they determined he wasn\u2019t a threat to himself or anyone else, they searched his car, where they found his handguns. They were locked, unloaded, and stored in the trunk, as federal and New Jersey law require for guns in transport. The police arrested Aitken anyway, charging him with unlawful possession of a weapon.\u201d <\/p>\n
In New Jersey, the tedious process necessary to obtain a \u201cpurchaser\u2019s permit\u201d still doesn\u2019t actually entitle you to possess a gun. \u201cA few select groups of people, mostly off-duty police officers and security personnel, can obtain carry permits,\u201d the magazine reports. \u201cBut anyone else with a gun is presumed to be violating state law and must defend against the charge of illegal gun possession by claiming one of the state\u2019s exemptions.\u201d <\/p>\n
The exemptions allow New Jersey residents to have guns in their homes, while hunting or at a shooting range, while traveling to or from hunting grounds or a shooting range, and when traveling between residences. Brian Aitken claimed he was indeed moving between residences. Sue Aitken testified that her son was moving his belongings from her house to his. So did Aitken\u2019s roommate. One of the police officers at the scene testified that Aitken\u2019s car was filled with personal belongings. <\/p>\n
Yet Superior Court Judge Morley wouldn\u2019t allow Aitken to claim the exemption for transporting guns between residences. He wouldn\u2019t even let the jury know about it. During deliberations, Balko reports, the jurors asked three times about exceptions to the law, \u201cwhich suggests they weren\u2019t comfortable convicting Aitken.\u201d Morley refused to answer them all three times. <\/p>\n
Gilbert and Evan Nappen, Aitken\u2019s lawyers, point out their client should also have been protected by a federal law that forbids states from prosecuting gun owners who are transporting guns between residences. But Judge Morley wouldn\u2019t let Aitken cite that provision, either. <\/p>\n
In a telephone interview, former Judge Morley (who lost his job when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie declined to reappoint him in June because of his rulings in unrelated cases) told Balko he didn\u2019t allow the jury to consider the moving exception because \u201cit wasn\u2019t relevant. … He was trying to argue that the law should give him this broad window extending over several weeks to justify driving around with guns in his car.\u201d <\/p>\n
Without any information about the exception, the far-from-fully-informed jury did what anyone would have expected. In New Jersey, possession of a firearm without a permit is a felony, punishable by 5 to 10 years in prison. Last August, Aitken was convicted and sentenced to seven. <\/p>\n
\u201cNew Jersey gun laws are insane,\u201d says attorney Nappen. \u201cIt makes a criminal of every gun owner and forces him to prove his innocence.\u201d Worse, in 2008 the New Jersey legislature and then-Gov. John Corzine changed the law to make the penalty for POSSESSING a gun the same as the penalty for using a gun to commit a separate FELONY. <\/p>\n
On the bright side, it appears national publicity sometimes does help, especially when it makes the political class and their black-robed monkeys look like a bunch of kitten-killers. <\/p>\n
For as it turns out, the story wasn\u2019t over. On Dec. 21 — four days before Christmas — I was happy to receive a press release from the National Rifle Association \u201cpraising New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for commuting the prison sentence of Brian Aitken — a gun owner who was arrested, convicted and imprisoned for illegal possession of firearms, even though he had made every effort to comply with New Jersey\u2019s restrictive and confusing laws.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cOn behalf of the 4 million members of the National Rifle Association of America, I would like to thank Governor Christie for freeing Brian Aitken in time to spend the holiday with his family,\u201d said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action. \u201cBrian Aitken\u2019s case is just one example of how New Jersey\u2019s ridiculous gun laws turn law-abiding gun owners into criminals,\u201d Cox added. <\/p>\n
Indeed, as Radley Balko said at the conclusion of his piece in \u201cReason\u201d: <\/p>\n
\u201cPutting Brian Aitken in prison isn\u2019t going to make New Jersey any safer. It might, however, make some of the state\u2019s residents think twice before calling the police, particularly if they own guns. It might even make some New Jersey gun owners wonder if they have more to fear from the state\u2019s ridiculous laws and overly aggressive cops and prosecutors than they do from criminals.\u201d <\/p>\n
A commuted sentence is not, so far as I know, the same as a full pardon. While we can be happy Brian Aitken is a free man, I suspect he\u2019ll have trouble ever legally owning a self-defense weapon again, whether it be to defend himself, his parents — or even his infant son. <\/p>\n
What I don\u2019t understand is … why. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SPECIAL TO THE SHOTGUN NEWS Back on Nov. 15, \u201cReason\u201d magazine headlined their story, by senior editor Radley Balko, \u201cNew Jersey man gets seven years for being a responsible gun owner.\u201d Sounds a bit far-fetched — unless you\u2019ve ever had dealings with the anti-gun madness in some of our coastal states, where illegal alien gang […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2nd-amendment"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pWqFl-aD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions\/660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}