Let me get this straight…

In New Jersey, Land of the Galloping Hoplophobe, everybody knows that if you talk about protecting yourself from bad people with guns by buying yourself a gun you’re just being a whacko. A hater. You’re allowing yourself to be ruled by your fears. You’re a bad, weak person.

Unless you’re a New Jersey politician, of course. In that case it makes perfect sense. And furthermore you need bigger guns than anybody else, and someone to shoot them for you.

FLEMINGTON — The police chief in a borough of about 4,500 people says it’s necessary for him to buy four assault rifles for his 15-member police department. Chief George Becker hopes the guns will never be used for anything except training.

The rifles — .40 caliber Heckler & Koch fully automatic guns that hold 30 bullets — are expected to cost about $10,000. The police force does not currently have any rifles.

“What kind of situation would arise that we aren’t capable of handling right now?” asked resident Lois Stewart.

“An active-shooter situation,” said Mayor Erica Edwards.

Okay. First of all that’s not an assault rifle, Chief. That’s a submachine gun. But let that go. It’s New Jersey: I don’t expect you to know anything about guns. It’s very nice that you’re so concerned about protecting the public.

What’s that you say? Who said anything about the public?

Police Chief George Becker linked the acquisition of the rifles to the recently begun practice of having a police officer at each Borough Council meeting. “We don’t know, with the way things are today, who’s going to walk through that door. It’s a public meeting and there’s 50 people in here and some crazy person wants to see how many he can take out. You see it all over the country, in schools, in government buildings; it’s in grocery stores, for God’s sake, it’s everywhere.”

Councilman Phil Velella said, “A lot of these criminals who carry out this type of activity have this type of weapons, and if we don’t get them for our police officers, they will be at a disadvantage. We’re just bringing you up to par…”

…with what’s on the street,” said Edwards, finishing his sentence.

Ah! so it’s the “public meetings” you’re concerned about. And we all know who’s pretty much required to show up at public meetings, right? So naturally they need lots of security guns.

But I do want to know where Councilman Velella’s spending his evenings, where he sees so many .40-cal subguns. That fella bears watching, officers.

H/T to Claire, who’s channeling James Joyce today.

About Joel

You shouldn't ask these questions of a paranoid recluse, you know.
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5 Responses to Let me get this straight…

  1. Woody says:

    I’m waiting to see if the cop at the Borough Council meeting is going to be openly slinging the MP5. That should get some pretty interesting reactions. Of course we all know the council meeting was just the only excuse the chief could come up with on short notice.

  2. Tam says:

    I can hardly wait to see some half-trained Jersey Barney Fife cutting loose with a UMP-40 set to “group therapy” in a room packed with small-town politicians. It’ll make the recent NYPD Fifth Avenue Fiasco look like a Saturday night sorority squirt gun fight.

    I’d almost be willing to charge into the room waving a black-painted rubber chicken and yelling “Al’s Act Bars!” just to set him off. I figure I’d be the safest person in the room while he mows down the zoning committee and half the school board.

  3. Joel says:

    I’m going to spend the rest of the day contemplating that mental image, Tam. With a little schadenfreude-related smile on my face.

  4. Buck says:

    That’s funny. So I guess we ignore the notion that active shooters might have one or more of the following going on:
    The drop on the cop and hammer them first.

    Body armor.

    Doesn’t care and thinks it would be awesome to get the cop to kill more people that he does as he is doing additional killing while committing suicide by cop.

    I guess non of that ever came up.

    Also, methinks there’s a bit amiss with that monetary figure. What is that? $666.00 each? I know NFA items go cheaper to government agencies but not that cheap. Nothing HK does is THAT cheap. I recall the WHittier PD paying over $1800 for 9mm MP5s in MUCH greater bulk than 15. The .40s are simply more in any case. They went to Colt M4s because they were cheaper and more effective.

  5. The Jack says:

    Oh damn… this is happening right by where I grew up.

    I can’t say I’m surprised that Flemington has that kind of stupid Only-Ones. It’s built into their municipal code. As they’ve got the nice blend of New Jersey, NYC, and Philly arrogance, provincialism, and nepotism.

To the stake with the heretic!