You can help disrupt the illegal handgun trade - NOW!

Ceasefire NJ, the state's leading organization devoted to reducing gun violence, has learned that NJ Assembly bill A-339, commonly known as One Handgun A Month, will be voted on in Trenton on Monday afternoon (June 23rd) by the full NJ Assembly.

This is a critical measure whose intent is to severely undermine the existing intrastate illegal trade in handguns, without burdening law-abiding handgun owners. It will limit individuals to the purchase of no more than a single handgun in any thirty-day period, in order to dramatically diminish the bulk buying and selling of illegal handguns that fuels the criminal market. At the same time, it will allow individuals to purchase up to 13 handguns per year, hardly a burden.

Any and all New Jerseyans eager to reduce the level of handgun violence and crime in the Garden State should call the Assemblypersons who represent them on Monday and tell said legislators to vote for A-339. You can find your state legislators and their phone numbers at:

Please call on Monday! Help make your community safer!Background:

While it is the case that most guns recovered from crime in our state were originally purchased in other states and trafficked here, due to our state's relatively strong gun laws, there exists an active intrastate illegal trafficking business that puts weapons in the hands of those who cannot acquire them legally - felons, violent teens, the underaged, emotionally disturbed.

These are the guns that are used in crime. These are the guns used to threaten and wound and maim and kill. Public safety demands that we put barriers up to the illegal and menacing trade in these weapons.

According to the latest New Jersey statewide data published by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), for all of 2007, guns originally purchased in-state accounted for about 28% of crime guns recovered by law enforcement in New Jersey (see P.6 of

Since the vast bulk of gun crimes are committed with illegal guns, this means that a quarter or more of crime guns recovered in our state were originally purchased legally at New Jersey licensed gun dealers and then passed through the well-developed illegal distribution (trafficking) system to reach prohibited possessors who then used them in crime.

Like any business, profit coming to gun traffickers depends upon volume sales. An illegal handgun trafficker must buy and sell multiple units (illegal handguns) in order to stay in business. By limiting purchasers to no more than a single handgun per month, we can drastically increase the risk and cost of trafficking, making it unprofitable and dangerous and, by so doing, diminish the number of handguns flowing from New Jersey gun dealers into the criminal market.

According to the ATF report Commerce in Arms (Feb. 2000), two indicators of trafficking from gun dealers are: "multiple crime guns traced to an FFL (federal firearms licensed gun seller)" and "frequent multiple sales of handguns by an FFL...combined with crime gun traces..." (see P. 22 of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) searches have identified ten New Jersey gun dealers who fit these criteria, including one in-state dealer previously identified as one of the top 200 gun dealers in the country in terms of numbers of guns sold that were subsequently recovered by law enforcement from crime.

So, clearly and sadly, there exists a significant intrastate illegal handgun trafficking trade in New Jersey. This trade feeds the criminal market and leads to the rising tide of gun violence our state suffers. It causes untold devastation to Garden State families, neighborhoods and communities and a severe financial burden on all taxpayers.

It's time for New Jersey to act to cut the trafficking and its associated carnage. It's time to enact A-339, the One Handgun A Month bill. Please do your part, by calling your Assemblypersons on Monday. You can help make our state safer from the scourge of gun violence.