By Michael Hill

Correspondent

This is the gun Newton Police and New Jersey have told Michael Tumminelli he may not carry outside his house.



“The question is what is the state of New Jersey doing for our service members, any citizen who has a credible threat against them,” said Tumminelli.



Tumminelli says he wants and needs the gun to protect himself, his wife and their 3-year-old son. He’s a civilian employee of the Department of Defense — not allowed to carry a gun on federal property — and assigned to counterterrorism task forces that target the Islamic State and others. He prepares and trains agencies in explosives and cooperation in the event of an attack.



Tumminelli has a wall full of accomplishments. He also has high-level security clearance. His information and more than 21 million others were hacked and stolen from the Government’s Office of Personnel Management.

“So where’s my protection for the services I give this country. Where is my family’s protection,” said Tumminelli.



Newton Police and the Sussex County Prosecutor’s Office say Tumminelli’s request shows no “justifiable need” to carry. The prosecutor says Tumminelli has not shown “…an urgent necessity for self-protection, as evidenced by specific threats or previous attacks which demonstrate a special danger to [Tumminelli’s] life that cannot be avoided by means other than the issuance of a permit to carry a handgun.”

“Just the other day the former general of the defense intelligence Michael Flynn announced we have no idea of how strong ISIS is nor their partners,” said Tumminelli.



Tumminelli has appealed. The National Counterintelligence and Security Center has warned victims of the data breach to be on the lookout for terrorists through several schemes including “human targeting … often used by foreign governments to target individuals with access to information of interest to them.”



It warns “your new friend may test you … by getting you to talk about trivial work related information.”



The FBI warned the military and intelligence communities about “the wife of a U.S. military member (in Colorado) was approached in front of her home by two Middle-Eastern males. The men stated that she was the wife of a U.S. interrogator. When she denied their claims, the men laughed. The two men left the area in a dark-colored, four-door sedan with two other Middle-Eastern males in the vehicle.”



“I would like to be able to protect myself as well. There are many times when I’m not with him. Or I’m alone with my son,” said Michelle Tumminelli.



Second Amendment Society of New Jersey says this highlights how overly restrictive New Jersey gun laws and it should be alarming to the citizens of the Garden State.



“It’s absurd. They’re issuing them their death warrants, that’s what they’re doing,” said Second Amendment Society of New Jersey Alex Roubian.



Tumminelli is blunt about what he says New Jersey will accept as justifiable need.



“A body. One of my family members or myself would have to be murdered and even then they would probably say you know what the threat is over because we have ‘em. There will never be enough of a justifiable need for New Jersey. This is a never-ending moving of the goal post for the state of New Jersey,” said Tumminelli.

Tumminelli will argue his case again next month but so will the state that prides itself on being the Garden and not the gun state.

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