Brian Aitken in New Jersey prison for legal firearms

From New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice, Title 2C, Chapter 39-6:

e.Nothing in subsections b., c. and d. of N.J.S.2C:39-5 shall be construed to prevent a person keeping or carrying about his place of business, residence, premises or other land owned or possessed by him, any firearm, or from carrying the same, in the manner specified in subsection g. of this section, from any place of purchase to his residence or place of business, between his dwelling and his place of business, between one place of business or residence and another when moving, or between his dwelling or place of business and place where such firearms are repaired, for the purpose of repair. For the purposes of this section, a place of business shall be deemed to be a fixed location.

g.All weapons being transported under paragraph (2) of subsection b., subsection e., or paragraph (1) or (3) of subsection f. of this section shall be carried unloaded and contained in a closed and fastened case, gunbox, securely tied package, or locked in the trunk of the automobile in which it is being transported, and in the course of travel shall include only such deviations as are reasonably necessary under the circumstances.
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The above provisions are the ones that might have excepted Aitken from the law that otherwise makes possession of a handgun illegal in NJ. To MLeake's point, the latter phrase in boldface appears to be the only relevant provision indicating what it means to be "moving" under the law. Perhaps the judge determined that the exemption of paragraph "e" did not apply because Aitken was on an unnecessary "deviation"?

DD
 
I remember moving out of my parents' house when I moved to a new city. I had things there for a couple of years that I wanted to keep, but used more at their house than my apt for some time. I still considered it part of moving.

I don't know much about NJ, only traveled through there briefly 2-3 times. But I'm sure they have enough real crime they need to concentrate on without picking an innocent person raw over the definition of moving. A guy I used to work with was from NJ and a guy I used to go to church with. They both grew up there but were glad to leave too. Their main gripe was taxes and cost of living. They said lots of people were leaving there. Add this kind of situation to what they described & I can see why. I would very hard up to move to a state like that.
 
"I still considered it part of moving."

The law defines its terms rather narrowly. We aren't permitted to claim that we wanted it to mean something else.

Maybe I've spent too much time fishing and playing poker with a lawyer during the past 30+ plus.

John
 
johnbt

Where in the statute does it say everything to be moved must be hauled in a single load?

If it doesn't say that, then it isn't so.
 
So it would be legal to move my guns on the 1st trip from my previous residence, but not the 2nd or 3rd trip. If citizens let this crap go on, they deserve what they get. Ronald Reagan said we must fight for liberty in each succeeding generation. He was right.
 
"johnbt

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Where in the statute does it say everything to be moved must be hauled in a single load?

If it doesn't say that, then it isn't so. "
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I believe it says from your old residence to your new residence. Not from your momma's house (where you've been storing stuff for some number of months) to your current residence.

His roommate was helping him; he had a roommate because he had a residence in NJ. His residence wasn't his momma's house. In other words, in the view of the court, he was riding around with guns and ammo in the car, not changing residences.
 
Yes, I suppose having your unloaded guns packed in the midst of a pile of stuff in your trunk is "riding around with guns". Probably was getting ready to shoot at some mailboxes or parked cars, maybe even a drive by shooting.
 
All of these comments speak to the fact that there was a real question of fact as to whether Aitken was or was not "moving" at the time. The jury should have decided that question.

DD
 
They did. Guilty. He wasn't living at his parents' house and therefore he wasn't in the act of moving from one residence to another.
 
The jury did not decide on this question. The judge did not allow this section of the law (the "exceptions") to be read to the jury, so they did not even know about it.

That will be the point on which Mr. Aitken makes his appeal.
 
Sounds like how you're not allowed to cite supreme court cases in a tax evasion trial.
This thread has convinced me that I have no need to ever visit the "garden" state.
 
johnbt said:
They did. Guilty. He wasn't living at his parents' house and therefore he wasn't in the act of moving from one residence to another.
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The jury did not decide that question because the judge decided it. There was testimony that the guns were at the apartment at some point before the seizure. There is also that "faulty" police report saying that Brian had the guns locked in the car to keep them away from the drunks at an upcoming party. I'd like to know what was "faulty" about that report. For those not familiar with that author, he seems to have a bit of a beef with law enforcement, and might characterize a report as "faulty" if it had some technical flaw unrelated to the matter being reported.

In either case, he is not supposed to move the guns back and forth to his mother's house because it is not one of the few places you are allowed to take your guns, and he is not allowed to just drive around with them in the trunk either. The judge's decision in the matter was not the craziest thing here. The law itself is.
 
The bottom line here is that we, the people of the US, have allowed politicians to subvert the 2nd Amendment to the point that crap like this is happening. worst in states like NJ & Mass, as we see from people here, but not only in these states. Would the writers of the Constitution sit still over such a miscarriage of justice? Firearms issues are only a part of the whole picture. Look at seizures of cash with no proven crime, abuses of eminent domain, campaign finance laws prohibiting political ads too close to an election, etc. As the 2nd Amendment gets weaker, so do our other freedoms. When 2A is gone, see how fast the other liberties vaporize in front of us.

Who can we blame? The liberals? The politicians? The judges? The police? All of these, to some degree. But ourselves even more so. I had trouble getting a few gun owners to even go to the poll in 2008, 1 of our most critical elections in history. They had too much to do. Their 1 vote wouldn't matter. They didn't like standing in lines. I know a few gun owners who can't tell you who their congressmen are & have never called or written to them about anything. They never have a clue about pending legislation in their states or counties.
 
Ncpatriot, why the sudden doom and gloom?

We are nowhere near losing the RKBA. We are in fact, on the cusp of reinvigorating the 2A.
 
Hi Al,

I get this way when hairs get split multiple times to decide whether someone can do this or can't do that. We're dealing with a guy who was imprisoned unjustly & we're arguing over whether he was moving or not, or how many trips constitute a move. Some argue that if he put the guns in the car trunk to avoid them being around during a party that he shouldn't have done that. If someone had been hurt at the party, it would be that he should have had them secured somewhere.

You are right, we have had a lot of revival in many states on RKBA. My state has made progress. But it scares me that some states have become such havens of tyranny and foolishness. It scares me that even gun owners cannot agree on whether he should have been able to carry firearms without fear of persecution.
 
"We're dealing with a guy who was imprisoned unjustly"

He broke the law. Bad law, but he broke it. Most of us are sticking to the facts and discussing the laws of NJ, not making emotional statements that are unsupported by the facts and the laws as written.

Here's how I think some people generally look at the law. "But officer, why am I getting a ticket for a moving violation, I wasn't moving, I was driving. See, no furniture."

John
 
This reminds me of a story some years back, about a guy from NJ who had just moved to NY. His handgun had been legally registered in NJ and he was in the process of getting it legally registered in NY, when someone broke into his home and he was forced to shoot the guy. The local AG tried charging him with some gun crime or another and only backed off after O'Reilly ran a story on it. In this specific case, not everything adds up. Something seems wrong with the guys timeline. That being said, they railroaded him plain and simple to set an example. IMO thats wrong.
 
ncpatriot said:
Some argue that if he put the guns in the car trunk to avoid them being around during a party that he shouldn't have done that.
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It is not so much that he should not have done it as that doing it was illegal, if that is what happened. The judge seems to think that is what was going on, and he may even be right. Seems to me like a question the jury should have been allowed to decide, but I'm not sure it would really matter.

There was testimony that the guns were at the apartment some time earlier. If the jury believed that testimony, it's game over. He moved the guns to his mom's house, and that was illegal, or he moved them to his car trunk, and that was illegal.

The fact that those actions are illegal is the big problem here. There is nothing wrong with moving your guns to your mom's house, or locking them in the trunk for a spell to keep them away from drunks, but NJ treats either action the same as a violent crime committed with a gun.

We hear endlessly about "reasonable" and "common sense" gun control, about enforcing the laws on the books. This is gun control extremism, and should be changed. It is also ripe for a propaganda victory.

In the real world of politics, NO ONE is really going to want to stand up and defend the fact that Brian Aitken's "crime" is sentenced the same as a violent crime with a gun. If the other side has a position it can't defend, you attack...
 
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