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Q: Who is responsible for the worst anti-gun law so far in 2009?

A: The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now—ACORN—perhaps the most notoriously corrupt organization in American politics.

Nearly everyone has heard of the corruption-plagued organization ACORN. Yet many gun owners are unaware of the organization’s strong anti-gun activities and ties.

This unfortunate story begins in Jersey City, N.J., which, like ACORN, has a long history of corruption and of suppression of liberty. From 1917 to 1947, Frank Hague was the mayor of Jersey City. In The Soprano State: New Jersey's Culture of Corruption, Bob Ingle and Sandy McClure call him "the granddaddy of Jersey bosses."

Although he never had any legal income other than his mayoral salary of $8,500 per year, Hague amassed a multimillion-dollar fortune.

His political machine, known as "the organization," made him a powerhouse in national Democratic Party politics. Like ACORN, Hague's "organization" perpetrated massive voter fraud.

For example, in 1937, there were 147,000 people of voting age living in Jersey City, but there were 160,050 registered voters there. Though impressive for its time, the scale of this duplicity was tiny in comparison to ACORN's alleged submission in 2008 of at least 400,000 fraudulent registrations nationwide.

"Boss" Hague held the Constitution in contempt. "I am the law!" he declared in 1937.

In a 1938 speech to the Jersey City Chamber of Commerce, he railed, "We hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear those words I say to myself, ‘That man is a Red, that man is a Communist.' You never heard a real American talk in that manner."

In the 1939 case Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, the Supreme Court ruled against a Hague ordinance that forbade labor unions from holding meetings or distributing leaflets in public places in the city. Hague v. CIO is one of the founding cases for Supreme Court use of the 14th Amendment to require local governments to obey the Bill of Rights.

The victory of the Constitution over the Jersey City "organization" helped pave the way, in the long run, for the current Supreme Court case that will decide whether Chicago and other local governments must obey the Second Amendment.

Jersey City enjoyed a period of competent government and genuine reform from 1993 to 2001, with Mayor Bret Schundler. Schundler ran for New Jersey governor in 2001 but was defeated by James McGreevey, a determined anti-gun advocate who later resigned in disgrace after the exposure of his corruption.

The year after Schundler left the mayor's office, Jersey City reverted to its anti-constitutional habits, participating in a Brady Center junk lawsuit against lawful firearm manufacturers.

In June 2006, the Jersey City government put itself in the vanguard of rights suppression, adopting a "one handgun per month" law. The rights-rationing law applied solely to the one licensed firearm dealer in the city, Caso's Gun-a-Rama.

NRA Director Scott Bach, Caso's and the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs (ANJRPC) fought back. They brought a lawsuit that argued the New Jersey state legislature had pre-empted local laws on gun sales. The New Jersey state law regarding licensing for firearm owners and police permission for gun purchases had set up a comprehensive scheme of regulation.

The legislature had determined when and how guns could be sold in New Jersey, and a city government had no authority to override the legislature's decisions. After all, local governments derive all their powers from the state government.

Under New Jersey law, if you want to buy a gun, you need to get a permit from your local chief of police. According to New Jersey law, "Only one handgun shall be purchased on each permit, but a person shall not be restricted as to the number of rifles or shotguns he may purchase."

If you wanted to buy a second handgun, you would have to ask your police chief for an additional permit. If the police chief considered a person's repeated requests for permits to buy handguns to be suspicious, he could refuse to issue the permit.

Nobody ever provided evidence that the very few people in Jersey City who had ever bought more than one handgun in a 30-day period were engaged in illegal firearms trafficking.

Recognizing that the Jersey City rationing ordinance was pointless, City Council President Mariano Vega Jr. called it "feel-good legislation that will probably not reduce crime, but we have to start somewhere, so I am voting yes."

After Bach and the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs sued Jersey City in state trial court, ACORN showed up. Yet the group did more than just file a friend-of-the-court (amicus) brief in support of Jersey City. ACORN actually intervened in the case, becoming a party.



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