New Jersey is Once Again the Center of Challenge & Opportunity for Freedom

By Scott Bach

New Jersey Crossroads 2013
New Jersey is Once Again the Center of Challenge & Opportunity for Freedom
Scott Bach
Scott Bach – ANJRPC

Trenton, NJ –-(Ammoland.com)- The Spring of 2014 could go down in history as one of the greatest times of both challenge and opportunity New Jersey gun owners have ever seen.

On the challenge side, we are facing a new onslaught of anti-gun attacks from reinvigorated Democrats who have picked themselves up after their embarrassing defeats last year, dusted themselves off, and rededicated themselves to moving their preconceived gun ban agenda targeting only legal gun owners.

They are leaner, meaner, and smarter this year, picking just a handful of high priority bills and moving them one at a time instead of trying to pass dozens at once. Despite the short pause in the action in April, it’s going to be a wild ride as the session unfolds, and the action will not end with the magazine ban.

On the opportunity side, as I pen this column in April, the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to decide as early as this month whether to hear the groundbreaking ANJRPC / SAF challenge to New Jersey’s unconstitutional carry law, and use it to resolve the carry issue for the entire nation.  If it does, New Jersey will become ground zero for the gun rights movement, and the legal and legislative scramble of the decade will begin.  A win in the Supreme Court would only mark the beginning of the process in the Garden State, as lawmakers would then be forced to write a constitutional carry law against their will.  That too would be one wild ride.

New Jersey teeters on the brink of both challenge and opportunity – of simultaneously becoming both the best hope for gun rights in the courts, and its worst nightmare in the legislature.  The irony is a poignant reminder that Freedom itself is teetering between annihilation and revival, and that you and I have a role to play in that outcome.

Liberty is among God’s greatest gifts to humanity, yet it has been appointed to the humblest and most ordinary among us to defend it now.

No matter what happens in Trenton or the U.S. Supreme Court, no one in whom the flame of Freedom burns brightly can sit on the sidelines for one moment.  Whether rising to a challenge or seizing an opportunity, defending Liberty requires active participants who will stand and fight when it matters most, even when the odds seem impossible and failure seems certain.  We did that last year and the results speak for themselves.  We have to do it again now.

As Spring unfolds into Summer, and as challenges and opportunities rise and fall, know that Freedom is calling you now more than ever, and that your every action and intention matter now more than ever.  The odds do not matter.  What matters is giving it everything you’ve got, for as long as necessary, whether success is visible or not.  Let the chips fall where they may. Answer the call.

About Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs: The Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, Inc. is the official NRA State Association in New Jersey. Our mission is to implement all of the programs and activities at the state level that the NRA does at the national level. This mission includes the following: To support and defend the constitutional rights of the people to keep and bear arms. To take immediate action against any legislation at the local, state and federal level that would infringe upon these rights. Visit: www.anjrpc.org

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Robert W. Parsons

There are still a lot of people out here who think the politicians will do the right thing ! If there was only a way to make them realize that change can be made and I hate that word since ( Obama made a mockery of it ) and there are people who think the democrats are doing a good job. America was made with guns, and I truly believe that it is the only thing that can bring her back – ( as History does repeat it self ). Now let’s find a way to turn all of the… Read more »