JerseyDog wrote:I'm kind of torn about this. The gun restrictions are widely popular in NJ and even Christie hasn't made noise about loosening them. The mantra of the gun lobby was states rights for years and years. It seems hypocritical to bitch when one out of 50 states decides to put restrictions in place.
Yet there remains a mandate that there be a minimum level of rights that must be honored for all, just to be "one nation". Right to vote, right to travel, right to keep and bear arms, right to a jury trial... The easiest analogy to make would be to the jim crow restrictions in the south, but I'll make up a different one.
If 49 states honored the right to a jury trial and the legislature of texas put into place a widely popular restriction that they 'may issue' you a jury trial if the authorities deem you to have a 'good and substantial need' for a jury, would it still seem hypocritical for the rest of the nation to go into texas and strike down that restriction?
See, it's not about restrictions, it's about putting a floor under the entire population, raising EVERYONE to a more equal starting point as far as the innate rights of the person. Just as the Tinker case, the Scotus said that a school kid's rights don't disappear upon passing the school house door.... My right to defend myself does not disappear upon my crossing the delaware, and I'd like the rest of NJ to recognize that I am not stripped of that right. NJ is not actually a different nation, it is still america.
