This Is the Kind of People Deciding Who Gets a Carry Permit in New Jersey

Gun control advocates love to empower law enforcement on matters of gun rights. In fact, they prefer the police to be the deciding factor on who gets a gun or who can carry one.

In many places, such as New Jersey, it’s up to the local or state police whether you meet the criteria for a concealed carry permit, which should be automatic after the Bruen decision, but isn’t.

Now, in a perfect world, this wouldn’t be the end of the world. The police would be above reproach and would only do what is intended by the law and never color outside the lines on anything.

We don’t live in a perfect world, though. We’re stuck with this one, and this is the kind of person who gets to decide who gets permits in his community in New Jersey.

Five police officers with the North Bergen Police Department say they plan to sue due to the behavior of Chief Robert Farley. The officers claim Chief Farley has acted in bizarre fashion doing outlandish acts in and out of the police station.

They say Farley defecated on floors, exposed himself and attempted to drug coworkers, among other incidents.

Attorneys Patrick and Matthew Toscano represent the five North Bergen officers. Patrick Toscano says he hopes to see the state attorney general remove the police chief from his position sooner than later.

Well…

…that’s disturbing.

Now, these are just allegations as part of a lawsuit. I’m sure there’s a lot more going on than we’re aware, and the chief hasn’t actually been convicted of anything.

Still, though, the allegations are so outlandish that it’s almost impossible not to take them seriously.

And again, this is the guy who has the say on who gets a concealed carry permit in his community. This is the kind of person your average anti-gun zealot thinks should have the say on whether you can even own a gun or not, in many cases.

See, what we all need to remember is that there’s no scenario where the police are made up of anything other than people. That means we’ll find good and bad, with most folks somewhere on a spectrum between the best and the worst. That means personal foibles and biases are going to be part of who they are.

Then we’ll have the more serious moral failings, which is what we may be seeing here, or in numerous other cases where chief law enforcement officers took money or other things in return for issuing permits. Honestly, the fraud is far more common than a chief engaged in the kind of stuff outlined above, thank God, but it does highlight that not everyone in the upper echelons of law enforcement are as pure as the driven snow.

There are going to be bad people.

Why do those people get a say over someone’s right to keep and bear arms? It sounds like, to some degree, people like this are why people want guns in the first place!

This is like making sure the fox is the one who decides who gets access to the hen house.