Proposed NJ law aims to keep accused gun offenders off the street - New Jersey 101.5 FM

New Jersey needs to adjust its bail reform rules to keep more dangerous individuals off the streets, according to select lawmakers, local leaders and organizations.

The way the rules work now, they say, many people accused of firearms offenses are released pretrial.

Advocates are pushing for passage of a newly proposed law that would make pretrial detention the default process for people who commit crimes while in possession of a firearm, and those who are charged with unlawfully possessing a firearm.

Currently, as a result of bail reform measures enacted in 2017, it's presumed that individuals charged with murder or other violent offenses will be kept behind bars until their trial begins. The new bill aims to add accused gun offenders to that pool.

Garden State Initiative, a nonprofit research and educational organization, said the proposal will enable further scrutiny of these defendants, regarding their danger to the community and to themselves.

"We can't have economic prosperity without a safe community," GSI President Regina Egea told New Jersey 101.5.

GSI joined New Jersey mayors, lawmakers and the state sheriffs' association on Tuesday to announce their support for the proposal. The Assembly measure was introduced on Monday; the Senate version was introduced in January.

“Republicans, Democrats, and law enforcement came together to support legislation that would keep bad guys with guns off the streets,” said Sen. Jon Bramnick, R-Union. “The bill would keep our streets safe by preventing dangerous criminals from getting out on bail.”

The proposed law notes that accused gun offenders' presumed pretrial detention may be rebutted in court.

Where NJ's 'red wave' of the 2021 election was reddest

In 2017, Gov. Phil Murphy won the election by 14.1 percentage points, a margin exceeding 303,000. His re-election was much closer, an 84,000-vote, 3.2-point victory. He and others talked about a ‘red wave’ of Republican voters in the electorate, and certified results show which counties turned red most.

Gallery Credit: Michael Symons

Cumberland County

Shifted 25.3 points toward Jack Ciattarelli and Republicans, the most in the state. Murphy went from 55.3% of the vote in 2017 to 43.6% this year, turning a 13-point win into a 12-point loss. It was one of three counties Murphy lost after winning it in 2017, along with Atlantic and Gloucester.

Shifted 24 points toward Republicans, with Murphy sliding from a 12.7-point win in 2017 to an 11.4-point deficit. It was one of three counties Murphy lost after winning it in 2017, along with Cumberland and Gloucester.

Shifted 22.8 points, as Murphy went from a 13-point win with 55% of the vote to a 10-point loss with less than 45%. It was one of three counties Murphy lost after winning it in 2017, along with Atlantic and Cumberland.

Shifted 18.4 points toward Republicans, the only county outside South Jersey to be one of Ciattarelli’s half-dozen best improvements over the party’s 2017 performance. Murphy won it by 22% in 2017 but by less than 4 points this year.

Moved 14.8 points toward Republicans … Murphy got fewer votes in Hudson than in 2017, through only barely, a drop of 205 votes but still over 88,000. Ciattarelli got over 30,000 votes, up from the 19,000+ that Kim Guadagno got in 2017. Hudson had the state’s smallest increase in turnout.

Murphy won Camden County with nearly 62% of the vote, but that was down from more than 67% of the vote in 2017. His margin shrank by 12.3 points, though he still won by 24 points.

Murphy won Essex by 12.2 points fewer than four years ago – a win by ‘just’ 48.5 points, down from almost 61 points in 2017. He gained 3,000 votes to Ciattarelli’s nearly 15,000. Still, the county displaced Hudson as Murphy’s best showing.

This is the Republicans’ best-performing county in New Jersey, where an over 26-point win in 2017 expanded to nearly 36 points this year. But that 9.4-point shift was smaller than the overall state average.

No county in South Jersey shifted less toward the Republican column than Burlington, although the GOP did flip a state Senate seat anchored here. Murphy went from a 14.6-point win in 2017 to a roughly 7-point win, down by 7.5 points.

Ciattarelli won by 6.5 points more than Guadagno did in 2017, an 18.5-point win, up from 12 points. He received almost 40,000 more votes than she had – though Murphy gained by more than 17,000, more than in any other county in the state.

Warren County was already one of the most lopsided in favor of Republicans, and it became slightly redder this year. Ciattarelli won by 3.8 points more than Guadagno in 2017, a nearly 30 point edge with 64% of the vote.

Murphy lost here by 8 points four years ago and around 11 points this year, a shift of 3.2 points. His gain of 16,408 votes was his second biggest in the state, though more than offset by the GOP’s increase of 25,566.

Inched 0.7 points toward Republicans … One of only two counties in which Murphy won by a bigger vote margin in 2021 (by 31,534) than in 2017 (by 29,347), although his percentage-point win was a bit smaller in 2021 – winning by 31 points, rather than 31.7 points.

Moved 1.1 points toward Murphy … One of only two counties in which Murphy increased his share of the vote between 2017 and 2021, getting 40.2% after getting 39% four years earlier. But he lost the county by 10,639 votes, more than his 9,011-vote defeat in Hunterdon in 2017.

Shifted 2 points toward Murphy … One of only two counties in which Murphy won by a bigger margin in 2021 than 2017, and the bigger gain of the two – by 4,321 votes, or 3.8%, up from 1,704 votes in 2017, or 1.8%. He got 51.5% of the vote in Somerset, up from 49.8% four years ago. Somerset was the only county in which Ciattarelli got a smaller share of the vote than Kim Guadagno in 2017 – despite it being his home county.

source: https://nj1015.com/proposed-nj-law-aims-to-keep-accused-gun-offenders-off-the-streets/

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