Baltimore police officer charged with dometic violence (courtesy abc2news.com)

“Encouraged by the state Senate’s recent vote to override Gov. Chris Christie’s veto of a firearms bill, a state Assemblywoman will try to revive another gun-control measure also rejected by the governor but strongly supported by advocates for domestic violence victims,” nj.com reports. That would be A4218, which mandates that any New Jerey resident subject to a temporary restraining order surrender all weapons (hammers? kitchen knives? baseball bats?), their firearms owners identification card and related permits. Regardless of what you think of that law, here’s a particularly galling provision . . .

The provisions of this subsection prohibiting a defendant from possessing a firearm or other weapon shall not apply to any law enforcement officer while actually on duty.

So, a cop judged dangerous enough to his spouse, significant other or family that the state deems it necessary to take away his firearm can still carry one when on duty. Because . . . lawmakers want police to back gun control measures. [Note: theatlantic.com reports that “Research suggests that family violence is two to four times higher in the law-enforcement community than in the general population.”]

Regular readers will know that “cop carve outs” for gun control laws are nothing new. Back in May, we reported on the police exception for Connecticut’s new gun violence restraining order. Retired New York police officers are excluded from the SAFE Act’s ban on “assault weapons” and “large capacity magazines.” And so on. The New Jersey carve-out for domestic violence-related restraining orders is not right, but it is par for the course.

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32 COMMENTS

  2. These carves outs are simply there to gain police/union support. Somehow a cop can get regular capacity mags for a NON-duty weapon. They can have 10 non-duty weapons with regular mags. And when they retire… OH you get the carve out to.

    If we really want to fight, we fight for no carve outs ever. Make the police only collect their 15rd mags when they show up for work. Make them check out their AR 15 every day. but they wont do that. Which is why you often see lots of cops silent most gun bills. If they had to live with it also, they would say pretty much the exact same thing we say every time.

    • I wonder if the carve outs could be attacked under the 14th amendment. Equal protection under the law and all.

      • It seems they (carve outs) can be.

        14th amendment

        Section 1.

        All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

    • This is why they can’t be trusted and aren’t to be respected. When the moment comes, and I fear in our lifetimes it may, don’t expect the majority of the local police force to stand on principle and defy orders to murder.

      They’ll dutifully lace up their jack boots and proceed to commit what future history books will characterize as crimes against humanity. It’s happened everywhere else always.

  4. Right? I mean, you almost NEVER hear about a cop arrested for beating or killing his spouse. Only about once or twice a week. But at least they’re “highly trained”. Whatever THAT means…..

  5. I don’t think people realize how easy temporary restraining orders are to get. Permanent is another ball of wax indeed, but a temporary restraining order has a very very low bar for evidence, and basically consists of $50 and three minutes in front of a judge on the day’s docket, saying “Yeah this person made me feel uncomfy once.”

    And for that, in NJ, you can get all of someone’s guns unloaded into a police locker, I guess. (Probably permanently. Even if the restraining order is temporary, I highly doubt NJ would ever give someone a gun back.)

    So this is basically like $50 and an hour of someone’s time to get someone you don’t like’s guns taken away permanently.

    • Sure. but that is not the argument here. The argument is: If that TRO is good enough to take MY guns… why is it not good enough to take a COPS guns??? hm….

      • Or how about the fact that this bill assumes that a cop under a restraining order is STILL ON DUTY

  6. Gee I quit a FB gun page because I dared suggest that cops get no special carve out when a guy said cops should be able to tool up in Buffalo Wild Wings-but not us ordinary folks. No guns in a bar-except for cops. He really got upset when I said cops get drunk on duty(see:Chicago). And obviously dead set against open carry…

    • Miami Beach cops have had more than a few controversies where cops, armed and in uniform, have been drunk on duty. The new police chief promises to clean house, but it’s too soon to tell if he’s successful.

    • It’s amazing how many people don’t realize that our boys in blue (whether good or bad) are regular human beings subject to all of the same flaws that anyone else is.

      • CRF says:
        December 1, 2015 at 15:46

        It’s amazing how many people don’t realize that our boys in blue (whether good or bad) are regular human beings subject to all of the same flaws that anyone else is.
        >>>>>>>>>>>

        OK CRF, they are the same as anyone else, they should be treated the same as anyone else. No special treatments, No carve outs.

  8. Reminds me of this: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/12/state_trooper_cant_have_gun_wh.html

    More evidence the imbeciles among us think that uniform and badge imbue mystical magical powers of righteous awesomeness.
    Sure, he’s a lunatic, alcoholic and a wife beater when off duty but on duty he’s super guy! Honest and true. Able to hit a moving bullseye with his service weapon from 300 yards and incapable of making rash decisions or acting out like a tantruming toddler when he doesnt get his way.

    Now if that were true the nanny staters would simply mandate uniforms and badges be worn by everyone all the time.

  10. a cop judged dangerous enough to his spouse, significant other or family that the state deems it necessary to take away his firearm can still carry one when on duty.

    Let’s take a step back! If a temporary restraining order is as meaningful as this law implies, then why is the cop even allowed on duty in the first place? Shouldn’t he or she be temporarily suspended as well? Somehow we’re to trust this person while on duty but, while not on duty, they aren’t safe enough to possess any sort of weapon? That’s insane. The person is either “unsafe” or “safe.” If they’re unsafe, there is no possible way to reconcile that with them being on active duty. Obviously the whole thing is complete BS and yet another “logic free zone.”

  12. That has the foul stench of police union about it.

    Back in ’96, Illinois was thinking about passing a similar bill. It looked to fairly fly though the legislature… until the Chicago Lodge of the FOP discovered that cops were NOT exempted.

    They went on NPR to DEMAND that cops be exempted. There followed the SECOND creepiest segment I’ve ever heard on NPR, surpassed ONLY by the appearance of the “roving ambassador” of the Taliban, shortly before 9/11.

    Their “argument” was threefold:
    1. You can’t take the gun from a wife beating cop because that’s his “tool of the trade”. – Being NPR, nobody thought to ask if that applied to hitmen and liquor store robbers.
    2. If you take the gun from an angry, violent cop that’ll only make him MORE angry and violent. – Likewise, nobody sought to ask how Sammy “The Bull” Gravano would react to being disarmed.
    3. You can trust a wife beating cop with a gun because he’ll be “closely supervised”. – Just apparently not closely ENOUGH to keep him from beating his wife’s brains out.

    That pretty much set my opinion of police unions in stone. I would no more contribute to the FOP than I would to NAMBLA, the Aryan Brotherhood or ISIS.

  13. “while actually on duty.”

    Would imply they lose all their weapons except duty firearm, which must be kept at PD/HQ when not on duty.

    • So the department now has to hold on to duty weapons that would normally go home with the officers, encouraging mistakes. Also it’s not like an on duty officer could ever find time to shoot his wife, right? Or beat her to death while off duty? If a cop is worthy of a restraining order, he’s worthy of desk duty until he’s tried in a court of law.

  14. So we’ll continue to have incidents like the Neptune Twp. Sergeant who emptied his duty Glock into his estranged wife with his seven year-old daughter sitting in the car with her. This guy had already been accused of domestic violence when they were married having held a gun to her head on a prior occasion. They took his gun away for a week every month for four months! When my father was alive and an active NYPD boss, they would have put this clown on the “rubber gun squad” and forced him out. In NJ, nah!, let’s give him a break along with all the other boys in blue who get off on beating up their wives and girlfriends. After all, they are the “professionals” who are qualified to carry unlike those crazy civilians.

  16. Cops should be subject to the same rules of gun ownership as the rest of us. As a professional driver I need to keep my record clear in order to work. If I was a cop I’d have to keep my record clean to insure I could legally posses the tools of the trade. Same thing.

    Abd cops should not get guns and mags not available to the rest of us. Same same.

  17. Nothing new here. If ya dont exempt the cops, they wont enforce the law on anyone. This is well known to us in CA where the cops are exempt from just about everything.

  18. And we have…… yet another win for Taliban Afghanistan over New Jersey in the civilized places category! Looks like a pattern is emerging here…..

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