Justifiable Need

Brian Kelly on the courts abuse of Second Amendment rights.

Picture a woman going to register to vote in New Jersey only to find the State has passed a law requiring her to undergo a background check, pay a fee, show proficiency in civics and, after meeting all those requirements, having to write a summary justifying her Need to vote.

Now, after attempting to justify her need to exercise her right (let that statement sink in) she is denied by a judge who has arbitrarily determined that she didn’t have an urgent need to vote.

That judge’s lover and the local police chief’s sister-in-law however have miraculously passed all the above hurtles and can freely exercise that right with gleeful abandon.

Too farfetched? How about in the aftermath of 911, New Jersey passes a law requiring anyone wishing to practice Islam must apply for an Islam permit and show ‘justifiable need’ to pray to Allah. The State justifies this by claiming a large amount of terrorists are Islamic and therefore the Islam Permits will only be issued to very few people in order to protect the public, after all they can’t have NJ turn into the Gaza Strip.

If you find these examples offensive, you should, as they clearly violate an American’s rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights and no amount of fearful justification merits such infringement. Unfortunately that same, arbitrary, subjective standard applies to most New Jersian’s right to protect themselves and their loved ones in public with a firearm.

New Jersey’s ‘Justifiable Need’ requirement to obtain a carry permit is the self defense equivalent of ‘Separate but Equal’ Jim Crow laws.

In a recent Appeal (http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/opinions/a3704-11.pdf) the judiciary continued to defend the reprehensible concept of ‘justifiable need’. “applicants for carry permits generally must show “‘an urgent necessity . . . for self-protection’” by pointing to “specific threats or previous attacks demonstrating a special danger to the applicant’s life that cannot be avoided by other means.” Preis, supra, 118 N.J. at 571 (quoting Siccardi, supra, 59 N.J. at A-3704-11T4 17 557).”

Think about that for a second. So in order to show you need to carry a weapon for self-defense, which is a basic human right, guaranteed by the constitution, you have to first suffer an attack. So in the case of the recent Short Hills Mall Shooting, now that the victim is dead at the hands of violent criminals, he might meet the ‘justifiable need’ which doesn’t do him or his grieving family any good now.

It is tantamount to the government claiming you have no justifiable need to carry an umbrella because it isn’t currently raining. Ask yourself why do we as law abiding citizens have to wait until we are raped, beaten and killed before the State can see fit to grant us a right to self-defense which is a basic human right dating back to caveman times?

Read the rest here.