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  • 2018-12-28 (xsd:date)
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  • Is New Jersey Conducting Door-to-Door Gun Confiscations? (en)
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  • In mid-December 2018, alarms went up on social media about a supposed door-to-door gun confiscation campaign being implemented in the state of New Jersey. Users tweeted links to web articles with headlines accusing New Jersey officials of violating the Second Amendment and declaring war on their own residents: Among the articles cited in these posts were Gun Confiscation Begins in New Jersey, published on the website American Thinker, and New Jersey Declares War on Its Residents: Plans Door-To-Door Gun Confiscation Campaign, published on Zero Hedge (the latter being a reprint of a 12 December article from the Natural News website originally titled NJ State Police to Launch Nazi-Style Door-to-Door Gun Magazine Confiscation Campaign ... at Gunpoint, Of Course). Despite what's claimed in those headlines, however, none of the articles proffered evidence that the state was actually conducting, or planned to conduct, door-to-door gun confiscations. For example, American Thinker merely asserted that a new state law prohibiting high-capacity magazines with more than 10 rounds of ammunition opens the door to such a program: Further down, the same article quoted a Breitbart report saying New Jersey State Police refused to rule out house-to-house enforcement: That same Breitbart story was quoted in the Natural News/Zero Hedge article alleging that police plan to go door-to-door confiscating weapons. But none of those articles acknowledged a follow-up report on Breitbart (published later the same day) in which the New Jersey State Police (NJSP) were quoted as saying they did not, in fact, have any such plans: So, while it's technically accurate to say the state has not explicitly ruled out such a program, it's not accurate to say they're planning one, and patently false to say gun confiscations are currently underway. The question of precisely how the high-capacity magazine ban will be enforced has been a sticking point ever since the law was passed and signed by New Jersey's governor in June 2018. As written, it calls for New Jersey residents who own them to sell, modify, destroy or turn over their high-capacity magazines by 10 December, according to NJ.com, or face a fourth-degree felony charge punishable by up to a $10,000 fine and 18 months in prison. A 20 December article published by Reason reported that few, if any, New Jersey gun owners had turned over their now-illegal magazines to police by that date. John Crump of Ammoland.com wrote on 14 December that State Police sources said they were still unclear on how they were supposed to enforce the law, which many New Jersey gun owners consider unenforceable: We e-mailed a request for clarification to Sharon Lauchaire, the New Jersey Attorney General's director of communications, who replied: While we do not discuss law enforcement strategies, I can confirm that there are no plans to go door to door. (en)
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