Letter: Gun Restrictions Will Increase Violent Crime

The following is a letter to the editor submitted by Teaneck resident Josh Levy: 

Shame on the Teaneck council. On Feb. 5, without any fact-finding, without any solicitation of opposing views, without a single additional meeting, council members voted 5-0 to endorse all the state legislature’s anti-gun bills.

Law-abiding NJ citizens are already disarmed outside their homes, but these bills would disarm them inside their homes. To take just two examples, the proposed five-round magazine limit would ban nearly all handguns; and the proposed ten-round limit would make it difficult to defend one’s family against home invaders.

Such radical restrictions will only empower criminals and increase violent crime. They will leave everyone defenceless, including women facing rapists or abusive boyfriends, and schoolchildren facing mass shooters.

Armed resistance stops crime. An assistant principal used a gun to halt a shooting in his Mississippi high school before the attacker could kill more than two students.  By contrast, in the gun-free, i.e., defenceless, zone of the Connecticut elementary school, the toll was 26 dead, 1 wounded. In the defenceless zone of the Colorado movie theatre, the toll was 12 dead, 58 wounded. In the defenceless zone of Virginia Tech, 32 died and 17 were wounded. Today’s gun-free zones are tomorrow’s killing fields.

The Teaneck council members clearly seek to make the entire state a defenceless zone, no matter what the consequences. They are destroying a fundamental freedom and endangering everyone’s family. Because of their folly, more children will die, more women will be violated, and more fathers will not return home. If the state bills pass, the counci lmembers should be held liable for rendering Teaneck crime victims helpless. Shame on them.

Josh Levy

David Sudranski

David Fisher

Follow Patch on Twitter, Facebook and click to sign up for News Alerts. To submit a Letter to the Editor, e-mail teaneck@patch.com.