Proposed Anti-Gun Boondoggle Will Dig NJ Even Deeper.

Dateline: Washington Twp. NJ, March 15 2006

In yet another deplorable example of gross fiscal mismanagement and feel-good legislation, Herb Conway (D - Delanco) has proposed four million dollars be spent on "outreach" to combat "gun violence" in the inner city areas of our state.

Sure. Just what New Jersey taxpayers need. Another $4 Million boondoggle when just about every department and budget is in the red. This kind of absurdity is exactly how we got to be here in the first place – constant spending, no belt-tightening and legislative lemmings willing to “go along to get along” so they don’t jeopardize their own pet patronage projects all in a calculated effort to buy their re-election.

But the absurdity doesn't stop there. Of particular note is the customary thinly veiled extremist rhetoric that portrays firearms as the problem.

Why would an inner city urban youth want to buck the peer pressure, when all he sees on TV are rap videos extolling the virtues of being a "gangstah", the ill gotten gains arising from crime in the form of Lil Kim's countdown to jail being turned into a melodrama, and the icing on the cake - this year's Academy Award winning song imploring us to sympathize with the difficult lifestyle of being a pimp?

Here's a hint, Herb. It’s not the guns, stupid. The culture of violence resulting from an inability to value your neighbor's person and property exacerbated by today's pop culture that denigrates good old-fashioned hard work and education is the problem.

We at the New Jersey Coalition for Self Defense believe the way out, is the way in. Lessons of personal responsibility are always more effectively taught through the doing of it. A firearms safety and youth marksmanship program would engender these young people with some self-esteem, personal responsibility, accountability to others, and a sense of achievement.

And here's the best thing of all… we'd do it for a heck of a lot less than $4 million.

If New Jersey legislators are truly serious about this issue, and sincerely wish to decrease the spread of gang crime, then our citizens should have the same rights to carry sidearms for our self defense just as they can in 39 other states that don't victimize law abiding taxpayers – in more ways than one. Gang members don't fear the police, they fear an armed citizen who has the capacity and determination to defend himself, and that's the surest way to redact violent crime.

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The NJ Coalition for Self Defense is a volunteer citizen's not-for-profit organization, whose purpose is to effect positive change to New Jersey's current public policy of discouraging, penalizing, and even criminalizing, legitimate and necessary acts and methods of self defense. For more information on the NJCSD, visit us on the web at http://www.njcsd.org