URGENT NJ ALERT: Call/Write Gov. Christie to Veto Draconian Ivory Ban Bill TODAY!

[Sandra Brady]

The fact is this law is based on lies. There were not 35,000 elephants poached last year. The real number is 20,000. Still too high I admit, but lets stick to the facts.
The poached ivory is not coming to the US. USFWS stated in there own report that “Since the vast majority of seizures in the
United States were small quantities, we do not believe that there is a significant illegal ivory trade into this country.”
This ban will effect your grandmothers piano, musical instruments, antiques, and handmade knives. None of which are using new fresh, poached ivory. All have utilized ivory that has been in the country since BEFORE 1989. and is legal to use.
If the US has a problem with poached ivory entering the country, then the place to stop it is at the point of entry. but the reason we are not stopping any is because it is not coming here.
This law will also make mammoth ivory illegal ( and fossil walrus ivory and wart hog). - How will that help the elephant?

 

[Sandra Brady]

There is approximately 200,000 lbs of ivory that comes from animals that die of natural causes every year. What should be done with that ivory??? If the African countries cannot sell that ivory in a controlled market, then the elephant has no economic value. It then becomes nothing more than a big competitor for food, water and land. Who do you suppose will win in that fight? If your children need to be fed, and it's a choice between saving this huge animal or your kids eating another day, which would you choose? So it's not as simple as "I can live with out pretty ivory on my knife" . If that was what this fight was about I would side with the ban too. But it is not!

 

[Gadfly22]

The fact is this law is based on lies. There were not 35,000 elephants poached last year. The real number is 20,000. Still too high I admit, but lets stick to the facts.
The poached ivory is not coming to the US. USFWS stated in there own report that “Since the vast majority of seizures in the
United States were small quantities, we do not believe that there is a significant illegal ivory trade into this country.”
This ban will effect your grandmothers piano, musical instruments, antiques, and handmade knives. None of which are using new fresh, poached ivory. All have utilized ivory that has been in the country since BEFORE 1989. and is legal to use.
If the US has a problem with poached ivory entering the country, then the place to stop it is at the point of entry. but the reason we are not stopping any is because it is not coming here.
This law will also make mammoth ivory illegal ( and fossil walrus ivory and wart hog). - How will that help the elephant?

No, the numbers appear to vary between 30,000 and 35,000 from any number of sources.

And the US trade in illegal ivory has been robust:

"According to figures recently sourced from government agencies by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), more than 7,500 ivory carvings and 1,746 elephant trophies (with two tusks apiece) were legally imported into the U.S. between 2009 and 2012. Thousands more ivory pieces, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of loose tusks were legally imported during the same period. IFAW found that ivory valued at more than $1 million was available for sale via online auctions in a single month in 2013."

From: http://e360.yale.edu/feature/amid_elephant_slaughter_ivory_trade_in_us_continues/2738/

 

[Gadfly22]

There is approximately 200,000 lbs of ivory that comes from animals that die of natural causes every year. What should be done with that ivory??? If the African countries cannot sell that ivory in a controlled market, then the elephant has no economic value. It then becomes nothing more than a big competitor for food, water and land. Who do you suppose will win in that fight? If your children need to be fed, and it's a choice between saving this huge animal or your kids eating another day, which would you choose? So it's not as simple as "I can live with out pretty ivory on my knife" . If that was what this fight was about I would side with the ban too. But it is not!

And how can you tell the "natural causes" ivory from the "elephant slaughter" ivory? You can't, hence the broad ban (cf. the mammoth ivory discussion above). And it's not African countries selling ivory that is the problem; it's the uncontrolled poaching and the global markets, of which the US is one. And the idea is to shift the burden of proof and make enforcement of the ban easier:

"The new rules are designed to eliminate several existing forms of trade and, in an important step, to shift the burden of proof for whether ivory is legal from the government to an ivory holder. This shifting of the burden of proof is a major innovation, as most wildlife criminals in the U.S. benefit from the government's having to prove that endangered wildlife in their possession was smuggled. (Imagine a cocaine trafficker looking a DEA agent in the eye and saying, "Prove I smuggled it.")"

From: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...tes-rules-wildlife-trafficking-ivory-science/

A US ban doesn't solve the problem, but it's a necessary part of a worldwide effort to strangle the trade.

 

[Sandra Brady]

And lets not forget about China in all this. The Chinese government owns the biggest ivory carving factories in the world, built a rail system in Africa to move "goods" more efficiently. They are investing heavily in Africa, building highways and buying up natural resources. While the US and Europe act like colonial tyrants preventing African nations form building up their economies. Trying to make ivory ( a valuable natural renewable resource for them) worthless. Criminals profit, elephants die and the US loses influence in Africa, and China gets what it wants!

 

[22-rimfire]

Same thing will happen in Afghanistan with their significant copper deposits that have not been developed. China....

I am tired of the US trying to tell these countries what is good for them. Let these countries work things out on their own. Maybe concerned people could contribute to a fund (Gadfly22, maybe you could start one up and be the adminstrator) that would assist these third world countries in wildlife enforcement. As I understand it now, it is pretty much a shoot them on sight kind of thing out in the bush.

 

[Gadfly22]

Same thing will happen in Afghanistan with their significant copper deposits that have not been developed. China....

I am tired of the US trying to tell these countries what is good for them. Let these countries work things out on their own. Maybe concerned people could contribute to a fund (Gadfly22, maybe you could start one up and be the adminstrator) that would assist these third world countries in wildlife enforcement. As I understand it now, it is pretty much a shoot them on sight kind of thing out in the bush.

No need to re-invent the wheel. Lots of organizations are already contributing money and equipment for wildlife conservation:

http://wwf.worldwildlife.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=32021.0&dlv_id=0

 

[B34NS]

So if I have an ivory handled 1911, wouldn't it be a violation of my 2nd amendment right to have it be considered felonious by the state?

As a knife maker, it pretty much violates the bill of rights, seeing anyone in NJ with ivory would be a felon, after initial penalty.

I want to see the data they have to justify the bill and who lobbied so quickly for its passing. Follow the money.

food for thought.

 

[Twindog]

And lets not forget about China in all this. The Chinese government owns the biggest ivory carving factories in the world, built a rail system in Africa to move "goods" more efficiently. They are investing heavily in Africa, building highways and buying up natural resources. While the US and Europe act like colonial tyrants preventing African nations form building up their economies. Trying to make ivory ( a valuable natural renewable resource for them) worthless. Criminals profit, elephants die and the US loses influence in Africa, and China gets what it wants!

From Googling, the evidence contradicts much of what you say. Are you a dealer in ivory?

It is easy to see that tons of illegal ivory are being seized in the US every year.

NBC reports that the US is the second largest consumer of illegal ivory in the world. Our actions as consumers support a $10 billion industry that funds narcotics, arms and human trafficking.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/u...send-message-poachers-traffickers-f2D11594098

In one bust in 2011, a ton of illegal ivory was seized in Philadelphia.
Another ton was seized in New York in 2012.
Six more tons were seized near Denver last year.

US Fish and Wildlife says: ”…we believe a substantial amount of elephant ivory is illegally imported and enters the domestic market. It is extremely difficult to differentiate legally acquired ivory from ivory derived from elephant poaching. Our criminal investigations and anti-smuggling efforts have clearly shown that legal ivory trade can serve as a cover for illegal trade. As just one example, Service and state officers seized more than two million dollars-worth of illegal elephant ivory from two New York City retail stores in 2012.”
http://www.fws.gov/international/travel-and-trade/ivory-ban-questions-and-answers.html#11

Our current laws don’t protect elephants. It’s time to draft effective laws. Tens of thousands of African elephants are killed each year — 8 out of 10 African elephants are killed by ivory poachers. Major terrorist groups get massive amounts of funding from this poaching. At this rate, central African elephants will be completely gone in 10 years.

We don’t have a lot of time to get this right.

 

[W.M.B.]

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13668803
I would love to see ivory a legally traded, loosely if at all restricted commodity, like many other animal products, cow bone or stag, sheep horn, etc. But obviously the numbers of elephant s being killed for the current ivory trade is not sustainable. While I agree that the legislation we are discussing cannot fix the problem on it's own, I have no better solution. I support the bill. As far as the economic impact on the poor, innocent dealers in legal ivory today, I am not moved to compassion. I think that most of the value of a person's investment in ivory is there precisely because of how close to this line it has been for so long. If you invest I'm a volatile commodity, you find yourself in this kind of situation from time to time. I think Esav had the most practical solution, and it would provide a win all around. Poor governments would get an economic boost, ivory trade would be legal, the number of elephants killed would go down, so they would(hopefully) survive, and because the amount of new ivory entering the market goes down, current stocks increase in value. Everyone wins. But that is action that the u.s. cannot take. This bill is the action that the u.s. can take. Until I see a better solution, I'm for it.

 

[killgar]

I'm afraid you have it backwards. Just because a few people are negatively affected by a law is no reason to scrap it if it has overriding beneficial effects. And this proposed law -- to put it simply -- does more good (in restricting trade in substances from endangered animals) than harm (preventing a tiny minority of luxury knife owners - themselves a small minority of knife fanciers -- from trading in those substances).

And for the record, the reason for the mammoth ban is exactly as I supposed:

"By prohibiting currently-legal transactions of antiques and mammoth ivory, the bill closes two of the loopholes most commonly used by ivory traffickers: pretending their items are mammoth or old, and thus legal, when they’re really from often recently-killed elephants."

Referring to a NY bill: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/epepper/new_york_bill_would_ban_elepha.html

In short, there was a very good rationale for including mammoth ivory in the overall ban, so it isn't at all the flaw that you have tried to paint it. It's just that illegal traffickers in ivory (shock!) can't be trusted to label their materials truthfully.

Allow me to offer a comparison regarding the point in bold, and what I perceive as your overall reasoning on this matter-

Let's say our government discovers that some knives being imported into this country are being made using child labor. Would it be right to ban ALL imported knives just to try and prevent child-labor made knives from entering this country? After all, child labor is a very bad thing, and using your reasoning, banning ALL imported knives would only affect a small segment of the US population and have "overriding beneficial effects", namely, reducing child labor.

A person speaking in support of a ban on ALL imported knives could say that it's important to ban ALL imported knives because it would take too much effort for customs officials to inspect all imported knives and try to tell which ones were made using child labor and which ones weren't.

There's an old saying for this type of situation- Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Or in other words- don't ban it all just because it's easier than writing an intelligent law and creating the means to tell the bad stuff from the good stuff.

In my opinion, passing a law that criminalizes behavior and materials that should not be criminalized, just because it's easier than writing a smarter law, and because it makes life easier for law enforcement personnel, doesn't sound like a good way to pass laws. Nor does it sound good for this country or the rights of its citizens.

I understand that some people are very passionate about saving the elephants, and I don't blame them. But to say "I believe in this cause so let's do whatever we can to save the elephants and to hell with who it might hurt", and giving the government more reasons to arrest people as a result, sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

 

[leghog]

So if I have an ivory handled 1911, wouldn't it be a violation of my 2nd amendment right to have it be considered felonious by the state?

As a knife maker, it pretty much violates the bill of rights, seeing anyone in NJ with ivory would be a felon, after initial penalty.

I want to see the data they have to justify the bill and who lobbied so quickly for its passing. Follow the money.

food for thought.

No, the grips are not the arm.

Regardless, unless you are trading in (buying, selling, bartering) ivory M1911/M1911A1 grips, the law would not affect your pistol grips. Even when you die. Upon your death your ivory pistol grips would legally go to your beneficiary.

Not everyone in NJ with ivory would be a felon, after initial penalty. Only those trading in ivory. Read the bill - food for thought

 

[Gadfly22]

Allow me to offer a comparison regarding the point in bold, and what I perceive as your overall reasoning on this matter-

Let's say our government discovers that some knives being imported into this country are being made using child labor. Would it be right to ban ALL imported knives just to try and prevent child-labor made knives from entering this country? After all, child labor is a very bad thing, and using your reasoning, banning ALL imported knives would only affect a small segment of the US population and have "overriding beneficial effects", namely, reducing child labor.

A person speaking in support of a ban on ALL imported knives could say that it's important to ban ALL imported knives because it would take too much effort for customs officials to inspect all imported knives and try to tell which ones were made using child labor and which ones weren't.

There's an old saying for this type of situation- Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Or in other words- don't ban it all just because it's easier than writing an intelligent law and creating the means to tell the bad stuff from the good stuff.

In my opinion, passing a law that criminalizes behavior and materials that should not be criminalized, just because it's easier than writing a smarter law, and because it makes life easier for law enforcement personnel, doesn't sound like a good way to pass laws. Nor does it sound good for this country or the rights of its citizens.

I understand that some people are very passionate about saving the elephants, and I don't blame them. But to say "I believe in this cause so let's do whatever we can to save the elephants and to hell with who it might hurt", and giving the government more reasons to arrest people as a result, sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

Your example blurs a number of lines. Suppose it was known that knives imported from a certain region ALL involve reprehensible child labor, and the international community was taking steps to alleviate the cruel conditions under which those children worked by strangling the market for those particular imported knives. Would you say that a ban on imported knives from that region would be a bad thing? Would you say that a ban that affected some bordering regions that may or may not have reprehensible child labor practices in support of the ban on the clearly bad knifemakers was a clearly bad thing?

The first alternative would certainly be preferable if you could tell easily by looking that an imported knife was clearly from the bad region and that another was from a bordering region that might or might not use child labor. But you can't -- though you certainly can tell by looking that an imported knife can't possibly be from either region (just as you can tell that a G10 handle isn't ivory of any kind just by looking), and those knives aren't affected at all.

And that, I think, is the situation presented by the blanket ivory ban: we know by looking that a knife is possibly "bad", and in the interest of restricting those clearly bad knives, some knives that might not be "bad" are caught in the broader net. But some knives -- a vast majority in fact -- are clearly not from either a bad or maybe-bad region and aren't affected at all. The baby isn't at risk of being thrown out with the bathwater. Just some other water might unintentionally go down the drain as well - which may be a waste, but one that can be lived with for the greater good.

 

[Charlie_K]

There are way too many blue state liberals on these forums. Too many people supporting broad, overreaching, unconstitutionally vague and ambiguous approaches to domestically dealing with a foreign problem.

Apparently nobody on here can understand that this is a divide and conquer tactic to prevent the public from organizing against government overreach.

 

[B34NS]

No, the grips are not the arm.

Regardless, unless you are trading in (buying, selling, bartering) ivory M1911/M1911A1 grips, the law would not affect your pistol grips. Even when you die. Upon your death your ivory pistol grips would legally go to your beneficiary.

Not everyone in NJ with ivory would be a felon, after initial penalty. Only those trading in ivory. Read the bill - food for thought

Read it just fine. That's what I'm referring to. Especially since the majority of people who own them, buy, sell, trade them. I wouldn't put them in the same class as ivory traders.

 

[crimsonfalcon07]

How about we avoid attacking each other and making gross, insulting generalizations? Certain members seem to keep doing that, despite warnings.

If you care about this issue, take the time to read the text of the bill and think critically about the outcome, and whether or not any elephants will actually be saved. Also put some thought to how you would feel if you had owned something for years legally, and then the government just seized it with no compensation and destroyed it. Make up your own mind, and check the personal attacks at the door.

For my part, I have read the bill, considered the implications, especially in light of the often un-constitutional ways that laws in NJ have been enforced, and have written the Governor. Thanks for your hard work, Mr Doug Ritter!

 

[leghog]

Also put some thought to how you would feel if you had owned something for years legally, and then the government just seized it with no compensation and destroyed it

The bill doesn't allow the state to seize ivory legally owned for years by a citizen. The bill would not make illegal simply possessing ivory or transfering ivory to beneficiaries. The sale, trade, or bartering of ivory or the intent to sell, trade, or barter ivory is what would be made illegal.

 

[killgar]

Your example blurs a number of lines. Suppose it was known that knives imported from a certain region ALL involve reprehensible child labor, and the international community was taking steps to alleviate the cruel conditions under which those children worked by strangling the market for those particular imported knives. Would you say that a ban on imported knives from that region would be a bad thing? Would you say that a ban that affected some bordering regions that may or may not have reprehensible child labor practices in support of the ban on the clearly bad knifemakers was a clearly bad thing?

The first alternative would certainly be preferable if you could tell easily by looking that an imported knife was clearly from the bad region and that another was from a bordering region that might or might not use child labor. But you can't -- though you certainly can tell by looking that an imported knife can't possible be from either region (just as you can tell that a G10 handle isn't ivory of any kind just by looking), and those knives aren't affected at all.

And that, I think, is the situation presented by the blanket ivory ban: we know by looking that a knife is possibly "bad", and in the interest of restricting those clearly bad knives, some knives that might not be "bad" are caught in the broader net. But some knives -- a vast majority in fact -- are clearly not from either a bad or maybe-bad region and aren't affected at all. The baby isn't at risk of being thrown out with the bathwater. Just some other water might unintentionally go down the drain as well - which may be a waste, but one that can be lived with for the greater good.

In regards to the bold highlight above, how could you possibly tell from looking at a knife where it was actually made? Knives do not possess identifiable markings or details that PROVE where they were made.

There are factories throughout the world. No government is going to admit that it permits child labor. And no company is going to admit that it uses child labor. A factory can print anything they want on a knife, but that doesn't necessarily make it true. Just because a knife has a country of origin marking on it that says it was made in Japan, doesn't mean it wasn't made by children in India. It doesn't cost any more to print "Made in Japan" on a knife than it costs to print "Made in India". That's the problem with dishonest people- they act dishonestly.

Instead of banning all ivory, and turning law abiding people into criminals, there should be reasonable means written into the law to differentiate between the bad ivory and the good ivory. A perfect example of such a law are the Class 3 firearms laws in this country. It is illegal to import automatic firearms into this country, but it is legal to own an automatic firearm present in this country before that ban (if you have the right permit). The government could just as easily banned the ownership of ALL automatic firearms in this country, but they didn't. Instead they created a means to tell the difference between illegal post-ban firearms, and legal pre-ban firearms.

Since fossilized ivory can be carbon dated, and since the ivory from animals other than elephants can be easily distinguished from elephant ivory, I don't see why the lawmakers can't come up with something better than just a blanket ban. Unless they are only interested in passing some kind of "feel good" law that lets them pat themselves on the back and say "Look how great we are, we're saving the elephants", instead of putting some effort into the law and coming up with something reasonable.

 

[zippin44]

So now I gotta register my guns and check my ivory at the door, or at least across the river in Pennsylvania?

 

[Sidehill Gouger]

Can anyone name a single custom knifemaker that is passing post-ban ivory as Mammoth?

As for simple possession, my family has a piano that has been in the family since around 1890 with ivory keys. Nothing ever stays in one family for ever, especially big, bulky pianos. So it doesn't bother you that this antique will become so much worthless garbage in the future?

I might also point out this is the same kind of law many would like to make for firearms. You can keep them for now but you can never sell or trade them to anyone in the future. One law will end up making the other seem all that more reasonable.