NJ Town Sees 6 Shootings in 5 Hours

New Jersey has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. Those laws, apparently, aren't having much of an affect on criminals in the town of Jersey City. That's where, during a five-hour span on New Year's Eve, the town averaged over one shooting an hour.

"We had a perfect storm," Jersey City Police Chief Thomas Comey told the Jersey Journal. "Alcohol and gunpowder don't mix."

The Journal reports "cops arrested two people and recovered two illegal handguns after responding to six shooting incidents that resulted in five gunshot victims hospitalized between 11:40 p.m. Friday and 4:45 a.m. Saturday."

NJ.com details the shootings:

Friday, 11:40 p.m.: A 16-year-old boy was shot three times in the stomach and once in the back on Grant Avenue by two men with handguns, according to Jersey City Police Department spokesman Lt. Edgar Martinez. Yesterday, the boy was listed in stable condition at an area hospital, officials said.

Saturday, 2:04 a.m.: Police arrested Rashauon Johnson, 31, of Fulton Avenue in Jersey City, who was shot in the abdomen during a shootout outside Brenda's Place at 269 Ocean Ave., police said. Johnson, who remained hospitalized last night, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, and various weapons related charges, officials said.

2:23 a.m.: Police met a 21-year-old Irvington man at a Virginia Avenue house who had been shot in both hips. Witnesses said he had been involved in an argument with other men, according to reports.

2:59 a.m.: Police were called to help a 26-year-old victim who was standing on the sidewalk on Bidwell Avenue near Ocean Avenue with a non-life threatening gunshot in the left buttock, police said.

4:09 a.m. Saturday, police responded to a hotel room with at least 6 guests at the Candlewood Suites Hotel on Second Street where a 20-year-old Gates Avenue man sustained a non-life threatening gunshot wound in the right thigh. The victim told police that one of the male guests shot him in the leg while he was in the bathroom with the shooter and his brother. Police reports didn't explain yesterday what the three men were doing in the bathroom together.

4:45 a.m.: At 254 Halladay St., police officers heard five gunshots and saw a muzzle flash from a window of the building, police said. Inside, officers found an aggravated assault victim bleeding from the face, mouth and head. The man had been beaten, not shot, police said. Police searched a top-floor apartment where they found a loaded Cobray M-11 9 mm handgun.

Last month, when confronted with the idea that criminals don't abide by gun laws, a CNN panelist suggested more aggressive gun laws as a remedy.