The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Trenton NJ, The National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action and the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, which is NRA’s affiliate in New Jersey, filed a lawsuit today against the state of New Jersey for a restrictive law that essentially denies law-abiding gun owners the right to a concealed carry permit.
Continue reading NRA Sues New Jersey Over Concealed Carry Law
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, while the media is once again going into overdrive with the Mass Shooting incident in Odessa Texas , there is hardly a mention of Mass shooting in Mobile, Alabama where a black teen shot 10 people .
Mobile police report that A 17-year-old was arrested after 10 people were shot following a high school football game .The victims in the shooting, which happened in Mobile, ranged in age from 15 to 18. They were rushed to area hospitals, and officials said.No one died.
Continue reading Cory Booker Plays Blame Game on Odessa Mass Shooting , Omits to mention Mobile Alabama shooting
The RHS principal put a great deal of personal sweat equity into the numerical success of that “nineteen minutes hate” session on the front lawn of the school last year. As the event was transpiring, he was milling about with the assembled journalists and videographers, childishly urging them to report the fake news “official number”, i.e., that fully 1,000 students refused to take instruction and skipped out on class en masse to bash the second amendment right to keep and bear arms.
March 25,2018
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, according to Open Secrets a government watchdog , the NRA is nowhere near the top lobbyist in Washington DC . Even though , “the NRA reported $779,000 in individual contributions in February. It was the most money raised in 11 months and more than the total raised in November, December and January combined.”
US Chamber of Commerce $82,190,000
National Assn of Realtors $54,530,861
Business Roundtable $27,380,000
Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America $25,847,500
Blue Cross/Blue Shield $24,330,306
American Hospital Assn $22,074,214
American Medical Assn $21,535,000
Alphabet Inc $18,150,000
AT&T Inc $16,780,000
Boeing Co $16,740,000
Open Society Policy Center $16,110,000
DowDuPont $15,877,520
National Assn of Broadcasters $15,460,000
Comcast Corp $15,310,000
Lockheed Martin $14,464,290
Amazon.com $13,000,000
Southern Co $12,970,000
National Retail Federation $12,890,000
NCTA The Internet & Television Assn $12,790,000
Oracle Corp $12,385,000
Data for the most recent year was downloaded on February 28, 2018.
Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics. For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: info@crp.org
March 24,2018
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The handgun used in a shooting at a Maryland high school was legally owned by the gunman’s father, authorities said Wednesday. A reader replied to the sad story ,“I don’t understand. If a law was passed to outlaw a 17 year old from owning a gun how ever did he have a gun? He was breaking the law? What about the gun free school laws? Do you think he broke those too? How crazy is that?!? Why, if people keep breaking laws like that, how are we ever to keep our schools safe? I’m confused.”
Maryland generally prohibits any person under age 21 from possessing any “regulated firearm” (handgun or assault weapon).1 Maryland also prohibits any person from transferring a regulated firearm to a transferee who the person knows or has reasonable cause to believe is under 21 years of age.
Maryland also prohibits any person from selling, renting or transferring ammunition for a regulated firearm to a person under age 21, or any ammunition to a person under age 18.3 Maryland also prohibits the sale or transfer of a rifle or shotgun to a person under age 18.
Maryland law provides that a person “may not store or leave a loaded firearm in a location where the person knew or should have known that an unsupervised child would gain access to the firearm.”1 This section does not apply if:
The child’s access is supervised by an individual age 18 or older;
The child’s access was obtained as a result of unlawful entry;
The firearm is in the possession or control of a law enforcement officer while the officer is engaged in official duties; or
The child has a certificate of firearm and hunter safety.2
State administrative regulations may impose storage requirements in certain locations.
Federal law :
Dealers may not sell or deliver a handgun or ammunition for a handgun to any person the dealer has reasonable cause to believe is under age 21.
Unlicensed persons may not sell, deliver or otherwise transfer a handgun or handgun ammunition to any person the transferor knows or has reasonable cause to believe is under age 18, with certain exceptions
photo Maryland School Resource Officer Blaine Gaskill
“arming teachers” is a liberal talking point attempting to advance a FALSE NARRATIVE that all teachers will be issued guns as standard practice without any training and who will keep wear these weapons as side arms or keep them on their desks similar to other school supplies..
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“arming teachers” is actually ALLOWING teachers or other on-site school personnel WHO ALREADY are qualified, responsible and trained gun owners who will receive additional training as needed and/or fully training and qualifying personnel (who MAY be classroom teachers or school personnel) to become qualified to handle weapons in an emergency situation.
You know… like the armed security guards and police officers were trained.
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But you ALREADY KNOW THIS.
You are just selling a disingenuous narrative to divert attention from the fact that armed onsite personnel IS EFFECTIVE in STOPPING SCHOOL GUN VIOLENCE AND SAVING STUDENTS LIVES.
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Your position is not helping children. It is allowing children to be murdered.
But you also know this.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, “Student-led” marches across New Jersey are part of the national March for Our Lives protests for gun control.
According to the Bergen Record ,the Hackensack march will include students from 18 high schools covering 26 municipalities. New Jersey’s first lady, Tammy Murphy, and Rep. Josh Gottheimer, along with other officials and clergy members, will also attend. The groups Ridgewood JOLT, Glen Rock After the March, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and Sandy Hook Promise are also supporting the march.
The “Student-led” protests are slick and well produced with the kids appearing to be nothing more than window dressing .
The focus more and more seems to be on a collection of political wannabes and helicopter parent activist pushing gun control and an anti NRA , anti Trump agenda with school safety being a mere afterthought.
March 20,2018
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Hillsdale NJ, Just five weeks after the high school shooting that left 17 people dead in Parkland, Florida, communities across the country are still wrestling with the idea of how to make students safe in schools. Since then the public has been treated to a litany of gun control is the answer , blame the NRA , and student walk outs.
Today a student who shot and critically wounded two fellow students at a Maryland high school on Tuesday morning, died after exchanging gunfire with an armed campus security officer. Yes an armed school resource officer keep the incident from spiraling out of control .
“Our school resource officer who was stationed inside the school was alerted to the event and the shots being fired,” Cameron said. “He pursued the shooter, engaged the shooter; during that engagement he fired a round at the shooter. Simultaneously, the shooter fired a round as well.”
Interesting WCBS 880’s Sean Adams did a report yesterday on one local school Pascack Valley School District has been employing retired police officers to help secure schools. Chip Stalter a former Chief of Police in Hillsdale and Mike Niego a retired Hillsdale police captain..
Perhaps instead of playing the political blame games and organizing “student led walkouts” Ridgewood Schools should get serious about school safety and looking for real answers.
February 25,2018
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, we have been told over and over “if you see something say something” , but if the latest school shooting is any indication ,when you say something you get ignored.
With great sadness the Ridgewood blog has had to report the latest mass shooting . It is ever parents worst nightmare. As usual the media has hijacked the dialogue always leaving out significant details .
First the FBI ignored a warning that 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz might attack a school, failing to act on a call just weeks before Cruz allegedly carried out a shooting rampage at a high school in South Florida on Valentine’s Day. An easily traceable Internet threat in is was made and ignored by the Feds.
Next we learned by documents obtained by CNN, that law enforcement officers responded to Cruz’s house on 39 occasions over a seven-year period .
Classmates claimed in post incident interviews the Cruz often introduced himself as a “school shooter” .
Worse yet according to CBS an armed on duty school security officer waited outside the building till the shooting stopped at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School .
CBS also is reporting that documents released by the sheriff’s office show that the school resource officer had information about the suspect and his “potential to carry out a school shooting two years before it happened.” But it’s his actions the day of the shooting that led to his suspension.
It just keeps getting worse and worse. CNN reports it wasn’t just Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson who waited outside during the shooting, apparently, the first three officers to arrive on scene joined him in waiting outside, hiding behind their cars with their guns drawn.
This is only a brief outline of the systematic breakdown that took place in Broward County and proof positive government solutions
And of coarse the media plays the blame game and blames President Trump and the NRA neither of which had anything to do with the shooting . The blame game works for politicians but never fixes any problems.
Blaming guns is like blaming cars for drunk drivers . And blaming guns like all “virtue signaling” will not solve any problems . On 9/11 we lost 2997 people with out a gun , in the Oklahoma City bombing we lost 168 people with the use of common fertilizer as a bomb.
If you want real solutions its time to address the real problems and ask real questions ; First why do we only talk about mass shootings , but never the 40 plus people a day who are gunned down by illegal firearms in cities like Chicago, Newark or Paterson? Why have mass shooting increased since the 1960’s , Why are they almost always committed by Democrats? Why does the FBI always seem to drop the ball ? Why if we can try to make it about race its a big deal and if we cant its not? Why are prescription drugs almost always involved ? Why do school administrators and most parents seem oblivious to problems right under their very noises ? Why can a person who being investigated by law enforcement buy guns ? Why is there not a uniform gun data base , like ATM’s or use block chain ? I am sure there are many more questions that need to asked and answered .
And of coarse the big big problem , I will quote my friend Jessica ” it isn’t an AK-47 problem, it’s not an NRA problem…it’s a people problem! Children aren’t raised to respect anything or anyone! We need to stop over indulging our children and start giving them spankings, discipline and teaching them how to respect!! Wake up people! “
April 20,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, the Gun Violence Archive is an online archive of gun violence data . The GVA claims :
“the Gun Violence Archive an online archive of gun violence incidents collected from over 2,000 media, law enforcement, government and commercial sources daily in an effort to provide near-real time data about the results of gun violence. GVA in an independent data collection and research group with no affiliation with any advocacy organization.”
The organization maps gun violence at a micro level. in 2015 New Jersey 252 gun-related deaths occurred. The results for New Jersey are as one would expect, the data shows that New Jersey’s gun violence was mainly concentrated in Newark and Camden. Well no surprise there.
Over all according to the Guardian News Paper ; “Using this data, the Guardian found that half of the United States’ gun murders in 2015 were clustered in 127 cities . We also found that violence was concentrated even further than simply the city level: census tract areas that contain just 1.5% of the country’s population saw 26% of America’s total gun homicides.”
There was no data on the gun ownership ,be they legal owners or unlawful owners a fact that seems conspicuously absent from this and other attempts to collect gun data.
Disadvantaged communities seemed to suffer the most pronounced impact from the violence, such as in Essex County, where gun violence fluctuated by the percentage of minority residents. The data for 2015 shows particularly low-income, disadvantaged neighborhoods can become hotbeds for gun violence.
There was also no tracking of the impact of sanctuary cites and immigration status although both Camden and Newark are considered sanctuary cities .
Anti gun groups can not glean much from the data , since it suggests that most gun violence is perpetrated on and by a very small portion of the population with no coloration to stringent gun restrictions. Causes seem as uncorrelated as well and solutions seem almost non existent.
more data : https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/
NRA boss LaPierre: Americans fear their country ‘off the rails’ under Obama
Wayne LaPierre’s message targets middle class worried about U.S. direction, security, freedom
Association has unleashed a multimillion-dollar TV advertising campaign that its longtime leader says is aimed at messaging beyond gun rights and reaching middle-class mothers, minorities and other Americans “who believe our country is off the rails.”
The gun lobby’s campaign, launched in the last 10 days, uncharacteristically delves into issues far beyond the Second Amendment to explore the IRS scandal, media elitism and security vulnerabilities, with a call to return “good guys” to power.
