You have the right to bear arms. Period.
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.
Related posts:
June 10th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Holy crap! A positive police story on blog of bile. I knew there was a reason the sky was darkening and fractured paths of luminescence were ripping the air asunder. It’s the end of the world.
June 10th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
like i said, the detectives are an entirely different group of people.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:50 am
[...] 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. [...]