Tag Archive for: Carol Browne

Anti-Gun Politicians Get Woman Killed in New Jersey

Carol Bowne

Carol Bowne / Courier-Post

Add Carol Bowne to the ever-lengthening list of people who have been killed because gun control supporters in elected office prohibited them from defending themselves.

In the most direct sense, Bowne, a resident of Berlin Township, New Jersey, was murdered, on June 3, by a violent ex-con she had prior reason to fear. But in a broader sense, anti-gun politicians also bear responsibility for Bowne’s avoidable death. It is they who forced her to choose between obtaining a handgun quickly and carrying it with her for protection — at risk of imprisonment, fines or worse at the hands of New Jersey’s law enforcement authorities and courts — or subordinating her self-preservation instincts to the dictates of those same politicians — at risk of death at the hands of her eventual killer.

To the eternal regret of those of us whose memory of this sickening story will not be erased by the banal arguments gun control supporters raise, as they try to escape the blame they very much deserve, Bowne, as a law-abiding citizen, paid the ultimate price.  In short, New Jersey’s extreme gun control laws provided Bowne’s murderer with exactly what he needed to perpetrate this horrific crime — a defenseless victim.

Bowne applied with her local police department for a permit to merely purchase a handgun — a permit to carry a handgun being out of the question in New Jersey — and waited. By law, state officials were required to process her application within 30 days.

They didn’t. As Charles C. W. Cooke noted this week, in Jersey, they rarely do. “Instead, would-be gun owners report waiting for three, four, six, and even nine months for permission to exercise what the Second Amendment makes clear is an unalienable individual right,” Cooke said.

In short, New Jersey’s extreme gun control laws provided Bowne’s murderer with exactly what he needed to perpetrate this horrific crime — a defenseless victim.   Much taller and heavier than Bowne, her assassin stabbed the defenseless Bowne with a knife in her driveway, repeatedly, twice walking away and returning to stab her again, then kicked her after she fell.

Someone of low moral caliber might ask “what difference does it make?” that the killer used a knife instead of a gun. But anyone who has to ask the question is incapable of understanding the answer. It is, simply, that gun control laws do not disarm murderers, they disarm their victims.

Because they deserve much of the blame for Bowne’s death, gun control supporters — if there are any who have a shred of decency and any sense of shame — should remain silent, while the sane among us go about the long overdue business of repealing New Jersey’s despicable gun control laws and any like them in other states. Several legislators in New Jersey have said they will take the very small — but important — step to introduce legislation requiring that handgun permit applications be expedited for women in Carol Bowne’s situation. But the far better solution is clearly to scrap the state’s absurd gun control laws altogether.Someone of low moral caliber might ask “what difference does it make?” that the killer used a knife instead of a gun. But anyone who has to ask the question is incapable of understanding the answer. It is, simply, that gun control laws do not disarm murderers, they disarm their victims.

Gun control supporters will not remain silent, of course. They will continue to press for more of the same restrictions that got Carol Bowne killed, and worse. One might ask “why,” but at some point, it doesn’t matter why gun control supporters do what they do — whether it is because of ignorance, a desire to control others, or a feeling of inferiority to, and disdain for, people willing and able to protect themselves. What matters is what they do, and what they do gets people killed.

Henceforth, let the gravest of risks be to the political careers of those who impose laws devoid of logic and contrary to the founding documents of this great country which jeopardize the lives of the people they are supposed to serve. On Election Day, in New Jersey and elsewhere, let’s remember Carol Bowne’s and that in all cases, elections truly do have consequences.