Groups speak against concealed gun bill in Morristown hours before it passed

William Westhoven
Morristown Daily Record

MORRISTOWN — Hours before the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill compelling all states to honor concealed-carry handgun permits from other states on Wednesday, a group founded by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords spoke out against it at a Town Hall press conference.

Speakers urged the public to pressure representatives to vote against the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017 .

The press conference took place as the House was debating the bill, with a vote scheduled for about 4:30 p.m. As expected, the bill passed, mostly along party lines, by a vote of 231-198.

Morristown Mayor Timothy Dougherty speaks out against a proposed bill in Washington that would force New Jersey law-enforcement to honor individual handgun carry permits from other states.

The bill will amend the federal criminal code to allow a qualified individual to carry a concealed handgun into or possess a concealed handgun in another state that allows individuals to carry concealed firearms, according to the bill.

Representatives of the anti-gun group Giffords, formerly called Americans for Responsible Solutions, deferred at the press conference podium to let New Jersey groups focused on domestic violence plead the case for resistance to the bill.

"The CCR bill gives individuals the opportunity to obtain a permit from any state, including those that do not require permits, and to then bring that firearm into New Jersey, where law-enforcement would be required to honor that permit in spite of our state's specific laws," said Nicole Morella, policy director for New Jersey Coalition to End Domestic Violence.

"This will give domestic-violence offenders the opportunity to access a gun, even in cases where they would ordinarily be prohibited from such action in New Jersey."

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The most recent New Jersey uniform crime reports shows there are about 2,000 domestic-violence offenses in Morris County each year, said Regina Braham, vice president of community relations for the Morristown-based Jersey Battered Women's Service.

"Domestic-violence homicides represent more than 50 percent of Morris County's murders, with 16 domestic-violence murders in the last 11 years," Braham said. "Since 2010, more than 80 percent of those murders were perpetrated with a gun."

Braham spoke of one JBWS client who told them that after a brutal beating by her husband, police seized 40 loaded guns from their home.

"Would you now want this man to be able to purchase a gun in another state, and bring it back to New Jersey?" she said. "Instead of elevating our protections for domestic-violence victims, passing H.R. 38 would bring us down to the lowest standards in the country."

Mayor Timothy Dougherty said he was baffled at the prospect.

"Law-enforcement are stressed enough with what they have to deal with every day," he said. "For them to have to think in the back of their minds that every day, under this law, that someone who has not gone through a background check, they have to consider that everybody is now concealing a weapon."

"I don't know how any of our representatives could support this," Dougherty said. "I urge our Congressman Frelinghuysen to vote no."

Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-Harding) voted in favor of the bill.

“Individuals with concealed carry permits are law-abiding citizens with constitutional rights, not criminals," Frelinghuysen said after the vote. "This legislation allows a qualified individual to carry a concealed firearm in any state. But the person must be eligible to possess a firearm under federal law in the first place, meaning that they are not a felon, dangerously mentally ill, a domestic abuser or have any other disqualifying factors for legally carrying a firearm.”

Giffords, responding after vote to Frelinghuysen in a Tweet, wrote "@USRepRodney just voted to weaken our gun laws. Thoughts & prayers alone will not prevent the next horrible tragedy. This is not the kind of leadership our nation deserves."

She posted the Tweet in response to Frelinghuysen's Oct. 2 Tweet expressing sympathy for the victims of the shooting victims in Las Vegas.

Passage of the bill had been identified as a priority for National Rifle Association, while the Giffords group bought TV ads this week to oppose the bill in Frelinghuysen's district.

"To travel to a state with minimal-to-no standards and obtain a permit for a firearm that could then be used against a victim, family or community puts us all at risk," Morella said.

New Jersey Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) did not attend the press conference, but Mandy Perlmutter of the Essex County section of the National Council of Jewish Women read a statement from Weinberg.

"This bill will have severe consequences for our state," Perlmutter read from the statement. "New Jersey's Congressional representatives must stand against this effort to loosen our reasonably stringent gun requirements and vote no on this legislation."

"What are we, the wild, wild west?" Dougherty said. "It seems like we are going backwards and not forwards. We all just saw what happened in Vegas, and is happening more and more around the country. And here, we're going to say maybe the solution is to arm everybody? Let everybody carry a weapon, and that will make us all safer? I'm sorry, but I can't buy into that philosophy."

Giffords, who survived being shot in the head in 2011, co-founded the group that bears her name with her husband, West Orange native and former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly.

Staff Writer William Westhoven: 973-917-9242; wwesthoven@GannettNJ.com.