Brian Doherty on Human Sacrifices for Gun Control
Enough of the American public believe that one should only face the severe punishment of imprisonment for crimes that harm people or property and/or indicate a propensity to continue doing so. When stories spread about justice not working that way, public outcries can dredge justice from injustice. A new memoir by Brian Aitken, The Blue Tent Sky: How the Left's War on Guns Cost Me My Son and My Freedom, tells such a story of injustice halted, often at excruciating, but always highly readable, length. It's the story of a man who meant no harm to anyone, who was doing his best to obey a picayune regulation, and who by most evidence was not even really violating the picayune regulation—New Jersey's Graves Act (which imposes certain mandatory sentences on certain gun-related crimes)—for which he was sentenced to seven years in prison, three of them mandatory without parole. Senior Editor Brian Doherty reviews Aitken's book, and critiques the letter and practice of gun laws in Jersey and across the nation that led to his injustice.