Newsgroups: fidonet.guns
From: Duane Barrett <[Duane Barrett] at [f319.n138.z1.fidonet.org]>
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 96 12:16:27 -0800
Subject: NJ Gun Ban Illegal

Gun Ban Struck Down as "Unconstitutional"
  96-02-28 10:23:19 EST

For Immediate Release                   For More Information:
February 27, 1996                       NRA Public Affairs
(703) 267-3820

     Gun Ban Praised by President Clinton
       Struck Down as "Unconstitutional"

  "[W]e need a national law to do what New Jersey has
  done here with the assault weapons (sic).... [B]egin
  with guns, and prove that we can do in America what you
  are doing here in New Jersey."

      -- President Bill Clinton
   October 8, 1993

The model for the 1994 Clinton Gun Ban was struck down in New
Jersey yesterday on constitutional grounds.  The Superior Court
of New Jersey found the gun and magazine ban unconstitutionally
vague and a violation of due process rights.

"NRA has argued for years that gun bans violate basic civil
rights and draw distinctions where distinctions don't exist,"
said Mrs. Tanya K. Metaksa, Executive Director of the National
Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA).
"A Superior Court concurs with NRA -- a Superior Court in New
Jersey, the factory floor of the Clinton Gun Ban."

In State of New Jersey vs. Robert D. Merrill,  the court
dismissed the gun possession charge as unconstitutional.  The
Florio Gun Ban prohibits a list of named firearms (including
"Avtomat Kalashnikov type semi-automatic firearms," for example)
and those  substantially identical" to the named guns.

Similarly, the Clinton Gun Ban prohibits a list of named firearms
(those "known as" the "avtomat Kalashnikov," for example)
together with "copies or duplicates." Merrill possessed a Norinco
MAK-90, a semiautomatic rifle with Kalashnikov
action.  The prosecutor charged that Merrill was guilty of
possessing a banned gun, arguing that  MAK-90 was "substantially
identical" to guns banned by name.

The Court said:

     "How is this Defendant or any defendant to know if his
     firearm is 'substantially identical' unless he is intimately
     familiar with the nomenclature of the 37 other weapons?
     This is an impossibility and a task which the law cannot
     require.... To prohibit  substantially identical' firearms
     is an unconstitutionally vague approach which cannot be
     countenanced (emphasis added)."

The court dismissed the charge of unlawful possession of a
magazine in excess of fifteen rounds, because the law violated
due process and ex post facto protections.  In short, when then-
Governor Florio signed the ban, law-abiding owners of proscribed
magazines unavoidably became criminals, whether they kept the
magazines or disposed of them.

"Gun bans don't deter crime," said Mrs. Metaksa.  "Gun bans
create criminals out of honest, law-abiding citizens."

   -- nra --

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