Quote of the Day
New Jersey demands that its citizens be defenseless when they go about their day in public. Defenseless. Until forced to issue Permits to Carry a Handgun by the Bruen decision in 2022, New Jersey banned its citizens from carrying any weapon for self-defense. Still today, New Jerseyans cannot carry any ordinary object for protection against violent crime, not a baseball bat, not a stick, not a knife, not a pair of scissors, not anything. If a person keeps an ordinary baseball bat in her car or if she keeps a small baton (sometimes called a kuboton) on her keychain she can find herself arrested and thrown in prison under New Jersey law.
Daniel L. Schmutter
HARTMAN & WINNICKI, P.C.
September 21, 2026
ANJRP v. Davenport
Not only “can” but have been arrested and convicted. From the complaint:
In State v. Kelly, 118 N.J. 370 (1990), the New Jersey Supreme Court interpreted 2C:39-5(d) to exclude self-defense as a “lawful purpose.” The case involved, Kelly, a single mother of a young child who was taking the child to the park to play. Because she was worried that, on the way to the park, they might encounter her violent ex-boyfriend who had beaten her severely on multiple occasions (including once sending her to the hospital), the single mom brought with her a carpet cutter for protection. Id. at 373-74.
Kelly was correct in her prediction. On their way back from the park, they did encounter the violent ex-boyfriend, and he started punching Kelly repeatedly, including punching her in the head, dazing her, when she tried to run away. Kelly then produced the carpet cutter and cut him several times. He ceased his attack. Id. at 374-75.
The New Jersey Supreme Court unconscionably held that while Kelly could lawfully exercise self-defense by spontaneously encountering a weapon at the exact moment she needed it, she could not prepare for self-defense in advance by bringing a weapon with her on her travels, even though she correctly predicted that she would need it to defend her life:
When Kelly armed herself, the danger was in no way immediate. Had Kelly seized the weapon spontaneously and used it to defend herself against a life-threatening attack, then, she would not have possessed the weapon for a manifestly inappropriate purpose. As it stands, however, even Kelly acknowledged at trial that she knew she was not supposed to carry a razor but took it with her in anticipation of a confrontation with Boone. Thus, the record fully supports the jury’s finding that Kelly possessed the weapon under manifestly inappropriate circumstances. Her anticipatory self-defense does not excuse the possession.
Id. at 385-86. In what can only be described as the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Dred Scott moment, the Court concluded that the legally correct choice for Kelly was to die at the hands of her attacker.
I cannot imagine what delusional version of reality these legislators and judge reside in. Wherever it is, they should be dragged out of it to be prosecuted, convicted, and severely punished.
As I have said before (and here, here, here, here, here, and here), “It’s this sort of thing that keeps me out of New Jersey until they are giving away free varmint hunting licenses for the criminal politicians and those that enforce these illegal laws.”
Anyone want to bet on the odds that these judges have taxpayer paid security and/or exemption from that law.
No. That is what is known as a sucker bet. I’d want longer odds than probably anyone would want to give.
Perhaps force these pricks to take a long stroll through Compton wearing PA rigs blaring out ‘all you niggas are faggots’.
Someone should find out if those judges have armed security, and if so charge them with the law they convicted her of.
Exactly. bringing your armed guard with you would be the equivalent of bringing your Carpet Knife with you in anticipation of needing to use it. And if your guard is in plain clothes, you’re carrying concealed, you antisocial creep — sneaking around, depriving a man of his livelihood.
I’m trying to understand the words perpetrated by that so-called “judge”: Had Kelly seized the weapon spontaneously…
What on earth does that mean? She should have magicked a weapon out of thin air? How do mentally defective morons like that even get through school, let alone law school, let alone through the process needed to become a judge? My dog is more qualified for the job than that piece of ****.
And yes, NJ (and other states) desperately need to adopt the Lone Star Planet solution. (Read the novel, it’s great. Free on gutenberg.org)
My interpretation of what that means is that she could have picked up something that just happened to be at the place of the attack, like a stick or rock. But the law, as written, did not allow people to carry anything that might be useful as a weapon unless you had a reason other than self-defense for that object. So, if you were near your car, and could access it, you could use the tire wrench to defend yourself. But you could not use the hammer you left in the car for self-defense. In fact, if you did not have a “legitimate” reason, and self-defense is not a “legitimate” reason, to have the hammer in your car you could criminally prosecuted for the possession of hammer in public.
I knew a security guard in the mid eighties who referred to such spontaneously obtained improvised weapons as “Alley Apples.” If there’s a rock or a piece of wood serendipitously within reach, that’s an alley apple. A trash can lid, if the sanitation workers haven’t mistaken them for the contents of the can, is an Alley Apple. This woman is almost certainly smaller and more lightly built than her thug ex-boyfriend, with less musculature and less experience fighting than him, too.
I have to ask if the judges in truth and fact genuinely view every violent encounter to be exactly the same as a bar fight between two friends who get drunk and come to blows over whether Sophia Loren or Gina Lollobrigida is the better actress. How else can any use of a force multiplier be banned no matter the disparate size of the assailant and victim, or whether the situation involves the victim being awakened from sound sleep at 2 am and then is required to match the assailant weapon for weapon and blow for blow. Truly, “the law is [STILL] a ass — a idiot” as Charles Dickens has a character say in Oliver Twist.
“the law is a ass—a idiot” originates from Oliver Twist rather than Bleak House. It is spoken by Mr. Bumble in Chapter 51 after learning that a husband is legally held responsible for his wife’s actions
Seems to me to be a denial of equal protection.
Because the state is demonstrably incapable of disarming its violent criminals, the state should not be legally capable of disarming its peaceable citizens.
That is entirely separate from the right protected by the 2A, which prohibits state powers from interfering with the keeping or bearing of anything interpreted to be an arm from a citizen that has not lost that right through full due process of law and an individualized determination of dangerousness by a jury. For which, the penalty of tarring and feathering may be cruel, but it should not be unusual, as it is historically contemporaneous with the adoption of both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
You misspelled “unwilling “.
Means, motive and opportunity are all parts of doing a thing, and yes, being “unwilling” is a big factor in being incapable.
“Corruptly unwilling.” Let’s call it like it is.
Just when I think liberal state court decisions can’t get any worse, along comes this one. If I were teaching self defense classes in New Jersey, I’d be tempted to tell students to tell law enforcement “It was the darnedest thing. The attacker was beating the crap out of me when I looked, and there was this carpet cutter on the ground. I picked it up and used it to defend myself. I don’t know how it got there. It was miraculous.”
If one has been beaten so as to wind up in the hospital, it seems wise to want something to fight back with.
What if after returning from the hospital, she carried a walking stick, made of some durable wood, Ash, Hickory, Blackthorn, Rattan (the non-hollow relative of Bamboo), or even Oak. Other possibilities include Gutta Percha (recommended by Preston Brooks as evidenced by his work on Charles Sumner), if you can find it, or even PVC from the building supply store.
Use it when you walk around after that, and if the big hulking SOB decides to attack you anyway, you do not have to defend yourself again with an empty hand.
This brings another issue to mind. If, after she got out of the hospital, she took lessons in Karate or Brazilian Ju-Jitsu, or even the potentially provocatively named Krav Maga, and this assault on her in front of her (their?) daughter occured with a similar result, would the lessons be considered arming herself in anticipation of the encounter in the same way it was when she took the carpet knife with her? I would think not, because her hands would be as empty as the big hulking brute, and whatever size, weight, and strength advantages he had, he couldn’t help carrying them around wherever he went. I consider the potential difference to be when her skill was acquired. gaining it after her hospitalization at his hands is not the same as if she acquired the skill before she knew the brute.
There comes a point when, through the machinations of people, and their deliberately established organizations, a political body comes to rest so far outside the boundaries of anything constitutional that one must question why we allow them to stay part of the country governed by that constitution.
Can a majority of the other 49 expel the offending state? Why not?
Just look at the “uniforms” worn by the Schutzstaffel New Jersey State Police….tells you ALL you need to know about the place….
The State v. Kelly details are striking: a mother carrying a carpet cutter on the way to a park, and the court ruled self-defense was not a lawful purpose. It will be interesting to see how the Davenport case handles that precedent.