Exercising the Right
Man Sentenced to Seven Years in Prison for Lawfully-owned Guns
The Philadelphia Daily News reported on a disturbing story that should horrify every gun owner in this nation. Brian Aitken, a 25-year-old successful media consultant who was going through a separation with his wife, was in the process of selling his home in Colorado and moving to a suburban New Jersey apartment to be closer to his two-year-old son when he was arrested in an odd series of events. On January 2, 2009, Brian was visiting his parents in Mount Laurel while taking a break from moving to nearby Hoboken. After Brian’s former wife canceled his scheduled visit with his son, he became distraught and said something to the effect of “life’s not worth living anymore” to his mother and drove away. His mother, a trained social worker, became worried about a possible suicide risk and called 9-1-1 but hung up after having second thoughts. Law enforcement traced the call and soon arrived at the scene. The police called Brian, who was on his way to his new residence in Hoboken, and asked him to return to his parents’ home because they were worried. When he returned, the cops searched his vehicle and found two handguns, both locked and unloaded as New Jersey law requires, inside the trunk, in a box stuffed into a duffel bag with clothes. Brian was arrested and, according to his attorney, the subsequent trial and conviction were the “perfect storm of injustice.”
The guns were lawfully purchased by Aitken when he was a Colorado resident. He had passed an FBI background check to buy the guns from a Bass Pro shop in Denver, and he had even contacted New Jersey State Police to discuss the proper way to transport them into New Jersey. In Colorado, all Brian needed was a background check to own the guns, but in New Jersey, which has some of the strictest laws in the nation, a purchaser’s permit is required to own the guns and another carry permit is required to transport them in his car. Aitken’s attorney, Evan Nappen, who specializes in gun laws, told the news that Brian had a legal exemption to have the handguns in his car because he was moving from his parents’ home to a residence in Hoboken.
New Jersey allows exemptions for gun owners to transport weapons if the move is for hunting purposes or if the person is relocating. Shockingly, the Superior Court judge who heard Brian’s case refused to allow this statute exemption to be read to the jury. The Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office and the Superior Court judge reasoned that Aitken and his legal team tried to raise the issue during closing arguments, but that it wasn’t presented during the trial and therefore couldn’t be considered by the jury. Nappen argued that the groundwork for the defense was laid earlier in the trial. During the trial, Aitken’s mother testified that her son was moving things out, and his friend in Hoboken testified he was moving things in. A Mount Laurel officer testified that he saw boxes of dishes and clothes in the Honda Civic on the day of the arrest.
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