SOUTH JERSEY (KYW Newsradio) — New Jersey lawmakers advanced a package of bills on Thursday aimed at cutting down on the illegal use of firearms.
New Jersey has some of the strongest gun laws in the country, and this series of legislation goes a few steps further by making it illegal to own digital instructions for 3D-printed guns and machine gun conversion kits.
Another bill would require special codes to track credit card purchases at gun dealers to identify suspicious buying patterns.
Liddy Ballard with Brady: United Against Gun Violence said credit card codes could help identify someone stocking up before a mass shooting.
“It really has to be egregious spending that we have seen over and over in these mass casualty incidents to trigger these algorithms and red flags,” she said. “Algorithms have been designed and historically used these codes to filter through millions of transactions and identify key financial behaviors, including potential criminal activity.”
Darin Goens with the National Rifle Association doesn’t think the laws would make any substantial difference in reducing violence.
“We see this, in its most benign form, just being more government snooping,” he argued. “In its more critical form, we see this being as discriminatory as a form of harassment.”
The bills all passed the Assembly Judiciary Committee along party lines, with Democrats in support and Republicans opposed. They must be approved in both the Senate and Assembly before being signed into law.