I never updated the blog about my Firearms Permit out of sheer laziness. I wasn’t too busy or distracted–I just wasn’t interested in recapping the story into text form after I talked bile’s ear off about it last Wednesday. If there was a way to do voice posts (idea!), I would have opted in that direction. At any rate, in case there was anyone on the edge of their seat over it, the thrilling conclusion of: You have the right to bear arms. Period.

I left work early last Wednesday and headed over to the Nutley Police Department where I ended up waiting in the “lobby” before I was admitted entry to the Detectives’ Offices upstairs. There was a woman in the lobby with me, pacing and showing 8×11 black and white photos of what looked like a fallen tree to a police officer and dispatcher. She kept saying that she wasn’t able to move her car because of the tree. She spoke in broken English. I couldn’t tell what her first language was. The police officer, a hard-looking older woman, asked her if she called the police when this happened. She said yes, waved the photos back and forth, and impatiently said the cops told her they would eventually get to her but had other things to do that day. At that point, the police officer buzzed me through the main door, and I walked up to the second floor.

I had to ring a bell because the door was locked. An older man opened the door and let me in. I gave him my first name, and he said, “Oh yes, your permit. Just take a seat.” I watched him open the file cabinet and go through some papers. This was the same man that took my prints and chatted with me on the phone the week prior. He came back over after a few minutes to tell me the laminating machine was warming up and that I owed them roughly $70. When I told him I paid in September, he never questioned me and was shocked it had taken this long to get my papers together. He fingerprinted my permit and brought me to the sink, instructed me on the proper way of washing away ink (scrub with liquid soap and only use water when the ink is completely gone; the soap loses its effectiveness when mixed with water). When I finished I walked over to the laminating machine. I asked him for his name, shook his hand and thanked him for being so incredibly helpful and informative every time I called. Dennis gave me that, I’m just doing my job look and smiled. After explaining to me exactly how I should go about purchasing a firearm, we talked about gun laws again and how ineffective most police officers can be about the subject.

He agreed that bile being charged $56 twice for applying in North Arlington and shortly after moving to Fort Lee was garbage. He started telling me a story about how he received an application a while back from a guy that answered “yes” pertaining to him having a record. The explanation? The kid was in the town park after curfew when he was in high school. The same applicant also explained that he had charges brought up on him for assault with a weapon. Dennis said when he saw that, he had to dig up what the charge was. After investigating old records, he discovered that this guy was charged with firing a potato gun with his younger brother 10 years ago. When he brought this information to the Chief of Police, Dennis said he asked if they were really going to get in the way of this person’s right to defend themselves because of a childhood prank? He shook his head and said, “It’s ridiculous.” He never told me if the applicant ever received his permit.

Before I left, he assured me that when I apply for another Purchaser’s Permit, it won’t take that long at all.

The Second Amendment needs more people like Dennis in law enforcement. As much as I was annoyed that it took so long, I’m glad I got a relatively hassle-free experience out of it. And there you have it, another positive police story on the blog. Maybe next time I go back and see Dennis, I’ll ask him if he’s a member of LEAP.

I guess filling out bile’s Firearm Reference Form for the second time inspired me call over to Nutley’s Police Department to inquire about my own ID. It’s been about nine months (Sep 19, my birthday) since I dropped off the paperwork and got fingerprinted. In those nine months I’ve seen bile, bosco, and ramuh get their ID’s and make their purchases. Ridiculous, I know. I suppose I could put a little blame on myself for not being overly persistent or aggressive, but I had little faith in my abilities to make anyone in the police department move any faster than they were currently going.

My experience throughout this process was that police officers and detectives have notably different attitudes about firearm possession. The police officers in my town always sounded “put-off” with any phone call I made–this includes my inquires about when I would be able to come down to process my fingerprints. They changed the times and dates on a weekly basis–to which I found out later were incorrect, thanks many to the detectives (who rolled their eyes when I explained how I was misled). The detectives were more than happy to answer any questions, go over my paperwork for accuracy, and fingerprint me twice (during the first round of printing, the computer froze and my prints were lost). They’re also very open about airing out their disgust of the system. They’ve critiqued the FBI’s ability to review prints in a timely basis and how the NJ Freeholder’s dragged their feet when they should have been verifying my mental background check. I was told that I should receive a phone call relatively soon:

I asked him what the phone call was for. He said, “Um, well, so you can pick up your ID; the nature of this conversation.” He sounded like he was holding back a laugh to avoid embarrassing me.

Being a stickler for following procedure, I had to ask, “But you guys never sent out the reference letters. Aren’t you planning on doing that?”

This time he laughed, “No.”

A little confused and interested, I explained what the procedure was (to my knowledge) and asked him why they weren’t going to bother with the references.

He replied, “We aren’t issuing the reference letters because it’s your Second Amendment right to own a firearm. Plain and simple.” He said that so clearly, as if his intention was to ensure that I never confused that right with anything else anyone would or could have said to me to skew it. For a moment I was speechless, due to half-expecting some run-around, asinine reply. Attempting to regain some ground in the conversation I stammered, “Well, yea. Exactly!” I could have just as easily said, “well duh,” and it would have been the same effect.

Still surprised, I continued the conversation further, “You know, in Fort Lee, they wouldn’t take that for an answer when I filled out the reference letter for my boyfriend. They called me up, told me they didn’t really want my opinion on gun control, and asked me to fill out another form if I was seriously interested about being a reference.”

He laughed, “Well, let’s be reasonable. If I am your worst enemy, are you really going to make me your reference? References don’t mean anything.”

We talked a little about gun politics and how if a criminal wants a gun, they’re going to get it through illegal means anyway, and how all these references and background checks really don’t do much.

It was a pretty refreshing conversation, I’m not going to lie.

It’s totally possible that my file has been sitting on their counter for months, and the only reason I have a pick-up date is because I called in today. Since the detectives have consistently kept positive, down-to-earth attitudes towards me, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt this time and shelf my cynicism… at least until next Wednesday.

I receive a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize around noon today.
I usually don’t answer unknowns, as they tend to end with me struggling to explain to Spanish-speaking Texans that they’ve dialed the wrong number.
This was my conversation, to the best of my memory:

Me: Hello?

Caller: Um, yes. Is this Laurie Par-a-vati?

Me: Speaking.

Caller: Yes, hi. This is Officer (inaudible) from the Fort Lee Police Dept.

Me: Oh, hi. (I immediately try to remember if I missed paying a parking ticket or something)

Officer: Yes, you submitted a reference letter for an Antonio Musumeci. Did I pronounce that correctly?

Me: Close enough, and yes I did.

Officer: For a fire arm permit.

Me: On, yes! (possibly a little too eager)

Officer: (long pause) I’m not sure if you completely understood what you were supposed to write on the reference form.

Me: What do you mean?

Officer: Well, (sympathetic pause) in the section where you’re supposed to explain why you think Antonio should get a fire arm, you wrote ‘because he wants one’ and ‘it’s his 2nd Amendment Right’.

Me: Yeah. Is there someth–

Officer: I always say these papers aren’t clear enough.

Me: …

Officer: Well, (pause) we aren’t really concerned with your opinion on gun control. I mean, if you look at the news, just giving someone a gun because they want one really hasn’t worked out well.

Me: (I opt to bite my tongue instead of getting into a blog of bile discussion) Oh, yea, I watch the news. I mean…

Officer: What this is suppose to serve is (pause), a moment to sort of vouch for Mr. Antonio. Tell us briefly why you think he should get a firearm. I figured you probably didn’t understand the intention of that section.

Me: I see. Because I figured, since Fort Lee already issued him a firearm.

Officer: (pause) Yes, well, you know. If you look at the news, just giving someone a gun because they want one really doesn’t work out well. If you watch the news (nervous laugh) you’ll see this.

Me: Oh, okay. Right.

Officer: Well, if you are serious about being his point of contact…

Me: Can you send me another one then?

Officer: We’ll send you another form, and just briefly explain if you think he is capable of owning a firearm.

Me: No problem. Thank you.

Officer: Have a nice day.

I want to throw this out there: the officer was not being a jerk. He stuttered, was really trying to be polite, and almost sounded like he was expecting me to get confrontational with him.

So am I surprised that my comments got me a phone call? Yes and no. I knew what they wanted to read was most definitely not what I wrote, that’s for damn sure. But the fact that they actually took the bait, wasted the time to call me, have this conversation, and to resend the reference letter annoys me a bit. Sure, now I have blog of bile subject matter to post about, but at the expense of bile’s firearm license waiting period. I guess the new game is seeing how long it will take them to mail out the blank form again.

Moral of the story? The 2nd Amendment is not a good enough reason for wanting a firearm.

On February 5th, the day of the NJ primary election, I headed down to the Fort Lee Police department to submit an application for 2 hand gun purchasers permits. NJ has ridiculously strict gun laws. They require you to get a background check, including sending questionnaires to 2 acquaintances and a FBI check, each time you want a purchasers permit. And of course it costs $18 to do so even though if they pulled me over they could check it for nothing. Since they are required to do the FBI check at the time of purchase, which costs $15, there appears to be no good reason but racking in more fees. But there is… since to purchase a gun from a fellow New Jersey resident I have to also have that permit and they won’t be doing the background check. Now how many people who do personal transactions do you think really obey that part of the law? I’d suspect few. So anyway, February 5th I handed the paperwork and money order into the records department and when asked how long it should take I was told 30ish days. Fast forward to th week of April 14th. I’m fairly annoyed that I’ve heard nothing back. I’ve been screwed over before by NJ over my FID so I had a suspicion that they had either been sitting on it or was otherwise trying to prevent me from exercising my negative and positive right to keep arms. So I call them up several times over the span of the week. “The chief’s on vacation”, “he’s out sick”… leave a message on his voice mail. A few days go by and no reply. Call back… “I can’t find your folder, let me get back to you.” Well he’s not gotten back to me but ironically a letter showed up in xyz’s mailbox addressed from the Fort Lee Police department. It was the “should this person be allowed to have a gun” form. What was the post date? April 21st, 2008. Funny… that would mean they have been sitting on my file for over 2 months and that the whole “It’s lost” thing was a lie because he said clearly he would search for the info and contact me when he found it. These bureaucrats generally can’t stand the idea of an armed public and have nothing but contempt for us. I got nothing but bad attitude from my old police department, who screwed me over by making me do the entire FID acquisition again in Fort Lee (including another $50+), and from Fort Lee police department except for the officer who took my fingerprints. Everyone else from the records handler to the chief have been incompetent, patronizing and rude.

And their other failure? The inability to pickup recycling. They force us to recycle and put out these little blue barrels out every other Thursday for pickup. Funny… I walked outside this morning (Friday) and the entire street was lined with filled blue recycling barrels. This isn’t the first time. Several times before they felt our street didn’t need to have our recycling picked up. Cardboard is especially fun because everyone ends up leaving it out for a few days because we for some reason believe that just maybe they’ll show up late and whisk it away. Of course what really happens is that it rains and we have blobs of mushy cardboard all up and down the damn road. How much would you like to bet the town wouldn’t pick up the cost of the private trash removal if we hired them in their stead or the fines we could receive for having wet boxes laying around the sidewalk?

If it wasn’t for it’s relative closeness to two major cities and the cheapest gas prices in the nation… Jersey would have nothing.

Today after voting I walked to the Fort Lee police department to hand in forms to acquire two hand gun purchasers permits. It seems they have created a wonderful system to annoy the shit out of and get money from want-to-be gun owners. You pay $54 for a background check, then $5 for the firearm ID, $18 for another background check for a handgun purchasers permit and $2 for each permit. The latter two is for each time you apply for a purchasers permit. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. According to the NJ code if I already have a FID I don’t need to do this again. Why would they need a new check and finger prints? My prints don’t change and if I had been arrested for something which would cause my permit request to be denied shouldn’t that arrest have also revoked my FID?

I have no desire to give NJ another penny of my money so I can have permission to “keep and bear arms.” A right protected by the federal government by the 2nd Amendment and prohibited of the states by the 2nd and 10th.

The restrictive NJ laws on firearms can be found here. I’ve sent an inquire to the state police about all this. Lets see what they say.