PA Bill Number: HB335

Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.

Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...

Last Action: Removed from table

Last Action Date: May 1, 2024

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Outrage over MSM ignorance of Bowne story; services set Wednesday :: 06/10/2015

There is outrage growing today within the firearms community over the lack of attention from the mainstream press to the slaying of New Jersey resident Carol Bowne, for whom funeral services will be held Wednesday.

Is it just possible that Bowne’s horrific story is being overlooked because it amounts to an indictment of New Jersey’s draconian gun laws? With the possible exception of the Courier Post in Cherry Hill, which has covered the story with great detail, the bulk of attention has come from the blogosphere and on-line news organs.

Bowne, critics are saying, is the victim of New Jersey’s red tape gun laws. She wanted to exercise her right of self-defense and the state gun laws prevented her from doing so. Now she is dead.

As Examiner reported over the weekend, Bowne was murdered last week by a man described as an “ex-boyfriend” – and against whom she had a protection order – while she was waiting for a gun owner’s permit to be approved. She applied for that permit back on April 21 and had actually checked on its status last Monday, two days before she was brutally stabbed to death in her own driveway. Police found her alleged killer dead over the weekend, having apparently hanged himself.

The newspaper has reported that it often takes two months for a permit application to be approved. Three state legislators announced they will introduce legislation to speed up the process in cases like Bowne’s. It won’t bring her back, but it may – if the legislation becomes law – save someone else’s life. After all, isn’t that the standard offered up by gun control lobbying groups, that it “saves just one life?”

Perhaps by coincidence, yesterday Americans for Responsible Solutions, the gun control group started by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and husband Mark Kelly, started advertising yesterday against a proposed amendment to North Carolina’s gun laws. The proposal, according to the Charlotte Observer, would “phase out” the current law, under which would-be handgun buyers must first get a permit from the local sheriff to buy a handgun.

The Giffords group is having fits, asserting that this change would allow people do dodge a background check. However, Second Amendment advocates are calling that nonsense, noting that people would still have to pass the National Instant Check System check, which is federal law.

The bill, HB 562, will reportedly be up for a vote this evening in the state House of Representatives. The Observer says the measure is opposed by Gov. Pat McCrory and the state Sheriff’s Association.

If Bowne’s tragic death tells us anything, it is that bureaucratic red tape can no longer be considered a mere inconvenience. Its use can be fatal.

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