BELLEVUE, WA – A lawsuit filed today by the Brady Campaign to force the New Jersey Attorney General to “formally report” the availability of so-called “smart guns” smacks of a back-door gun ban, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said in response.
The Brady Campaign is joined by the Mercer County chapter of the Million Mom March. If successful, the lawsuit would force the state attorney general to take the first step in the implementation of the Garden State’s 2002 “smart gun” law. It could ultimately lead to an end of consumer choice in the purchase or sale of handguns unless they incorporate whatever “smart gun” technology exists, because the law says that three years after the attorney general makes his first report on the availability of “personalized handguns” for retail sale, no manufacturer, wholesaler or retailer can sell, assign or otherwise transfer any handgun unless it is a “personalized handgun.”
“Gun prohibition fanaticism has hit a new low mark with this lawsuit,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “What the Brady Campaign wants is to force consumers to purchase a product that is, at best, unreliable, placing them at serious risk if they want a gun for personal protection. In the process, the gun control lobby is trying to strip away the right of personal choice, and ban the sale and transfer of current handguns.”
Gottlieb noted that Scott Bach, executive director of the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs has also blasted the lawsuit. In a statement, Bach called New Jersey’s smart-gun law “as dumb as it gets.”
“It forces you to use an unproven technology to defend your life,” Bach stated, “and then exempts the state from liability when the gun goes ‘click’ instead of ‘bang.’ If it’s such a great idea, then law enforcement shouldn’t be exempt, and the free market should be able to determine its viability.”
“For years,” Gottlieb noted, “the Brady Campaign and other gun prohibition lobbying groups, have been trying to disarm law-abiding Americans. Now they want to force New Jersey gun owners to provide a national experiment that could have disastrous results. If police don’t trust these firearms, why should American consumers?”