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Opinion: Governor Christie was right to veto gun magazine bill

By Scott St. Clair

Scott St. Clair1Gov. Christie was absolutely correct in vetoing the Legislature’s magazine-limit bill, despite Sandy Hook-parent Hugo Rojas’ protestations to the contrary. The bill was not only trivial, but it was cynical to boot since it did nothing but regurgitate the long-standing agenda of gun control advocates in New Jersey without addressing what really was at the heart of the Newtown, CT tragedy: defenseless children and teachers left at the mercy of a deranged individual who should have been locked up.

If you want to solve problems, the first key is correctly identifying them, not trotting out tired, politically correct memes that pander to sentimentality. It’s obvious that a big problem at Sandy Hook – a problem lawmakers in New Jersey ignore and perpetuate today – is defenseless schools.

Another problem is the hands-off attitude taken by local and state officials and law enforcement against mentally ill people who, like Adam Lanza, have a long, documented and scary track record of violent behavior yet are allowed to walk the streets.

Ignoring the real problems in favor of political pandering is what the Legislature did with the magazine-limit bill. Gov. Christie was right to veto it, and Mr. Rojas’ is mistaken in his criticism.

 

Posted: July 14th, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Gun Control, Gun Rights, Guns, Opinion, Sandy Hook Elementary School | Tags: , , , , , , , | 20 Comments »

Lautenberg returns to Washington to vote for gun control measures. Anti-gun legislation still fails in the Senate

220px-Frank_Lautenberg,_official_portrait,_112th_portraitU.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg returned to the Senate floor in a wheelchair today, after a six week absence due to muscle fatigue caused by cancer treatments, in order to give gun control advocates a the deciding vote in legislation that would expand the use of background checks for gun purchasers.  The legislation failed, 54-46. Sixty votes were required for passage.  Other gun control measures failed in the Senate today by wider margins.

Four Democrats voted against the background check amendment.  Four Republicans voted for it.

President Obama said, “It is a shameful day in Washington,” as family members of children killed in the Newtown, CT massacre stood behind him.

Obama, Senate Democrats, NBC, CBS, CNN, ABC, the New York Times, et al, as well as Barbara Buono and Sheila Oliver in Trenton, have been pushing to further restrict the right to bear arms since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown on December 14 of last year.

Today’s legislative failure by Obama and the left is a victory for law abiding gun owners and the 2nd Amendment.

Today could be marked as the beginning of the lame duck phase of Obama’s presidency.

Most Americans don’t care, according to a Gallup poll released on Monday.  Only 4% of Americans think guns are a major problem.  Yet Washington and the national media have been consumed with the issue for the last four months.

Gallop Guns poll

 

Posted: April 17th, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, Connecticut Murders, Frank Lautenberg, Gun Rights, Guns, Media, Newtown CT, Sandy Hook Elementary School, Second Amendment | Tags: , , , , , | 25 Comments »

What about the pharmaceuticals?

As President Obama readies himself to announce his new executive restricts on gun rights, we might ask what he is doing about pharmaceuticals.

The following is the last facebook post of John Noveske, a gun manufacturer who died is a single driver car crash on January 4, a few days after the post:

Eric Harris age 17 (first on Zoloft then Luvox) and Dylan Klebold aged 18  (Columbine school shooting in Littleton, Colorado), killed 12 students and 1  teacher, and wounded 23 others, before killing themselves. Klebold’s medical  records have never been made available to the public.

Jeff Weise, age 16,  had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the average starting dose  for adults!) when he shot his grandfather, his grandfather’s girlfriend and many  fellow students at Red Lake, Minnesota. He then shot himself. 10 dead, 12  wounded.

Cory Baadsgaard, age 16, Wahluke (Washington state) High School,  was on Paxil (which caused him to have hallucinations) when he took a rifle to  his high school and held 23 classmates hostage. He has no memory of the  event.

Chris Fetters, age 13, killed his favorite aunt while taking  Prozac.

Christopher Pittman, age 12, murdered both his grandparents while  taking Zoloft.

Mathew Miller, age 13, hung himself in his bedroom closet  after taking Zoloft for 6 days.

Kip Kinkel, age 15, (on Prozac and  Ritalin) shot his parents while they slept then went to school and opened fire  killing 2 classmates and injuring 22 shortly after beginning Prozac  treatment.

Luke Woodham, age 16 (Prozac) killed his mother and then  killed two students, wounding six others.

A boy in Pocatello, ID (Zoloft)  in 1998 had a Zoloft-induced seizure that caused an armed stand off at his  school.

Michael Carneal (Ritalin), age 14, opened fire on students at a  high school prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky. Three teenagers were  killed, five others were wounded..

A young man in Huntsville, Alabama  (Ritalin) went psychotic chopping up his parents with an ax and also killing one  sibling and almost murdering another.

Andrew Golden, age 11, (Ritalin)  and Mitchell Johnson, aged 14, (Ritalin) shot 15 people, killing four students,  one teacher, and wounding 10 others.

TJ Solomon, age 15, (Ritalin) high  school student in Conyers, Georgia opened fire on and wounded six of his class  mates.

Rod Mathews, age 14, (Ritalin) beat a classmate to death with a  bat.

James Wilson, age 19, (various psychiatric drugs) from Breenwood,  South Carolina, took a .22 caliber revolver into an elementary school killing  two young girls, and wounding seven other children and two  teachers.

Elizabeth Bush, age 13, (Paxil) was responsible for a school  shooting in Pennsylvania

Jason Hoffman (Effexor and Celexa) – school  shooting in El Cajon, California

Jarred Viktor, age 15, (Paxil), after  five days on Paxil he stabbed his grandmother 61 times.

Chris Shanahan,  age 15 (Paxil) in Rigby, ID who out of the blue killed a woman.

Jeff  Franklin (Prozac and Ritalin), Huntsville, AL, killed his parents as they came  home from work using a sledge hammer, hatchet, butcher knife and mechanic’s  file, then attacked his younger brothers and sister.

Neal Furrow (Prozac)  in LA Jewish school shooting reported to have been court-ordered to be on Prozac  along with several other medications.

Kevin Rider, age 14, was  withdrawing from Prozac when he died from a gunshot wound to his head. Initially  it was ruled a suicide, but two years later, the investigation into his death  was opened as a possible homicide. The prime suspect, also age 14, had been  taking Zoloft and other SSRI antidepressants.

Alex Kim, age 13, hung  himself shortly after his Lexapro prescription had been doubled.

Diane  Routhier was prescribed Welbutrin for gallstone problems. Six days later, after  suffering many adverse effects of the drug, she shot herself.

Billy  Willkomm, an accomplished wrestler and a University of Florida student, was  prescribed Prozac at the age of 17. His family found him dead of suicide – hanging from a tall ladder at the family’s Gulf Shore Boulevard home in July  2002.

Kara Jaye Anne Fuller-Otter, age 12, was on Paxil when she hung  herself from a hook in her closet. Kara’s parents said “…. the damn doctor  wouldn’t take her off it and I asked him to when we went in on the second visit.  I told him I thought she was having some sort of reaction to  Paxil…”)

Gareth Christian, Vancouver, age 18, was on Paxil when he  committed suicide in 2002,
(Gareth’s father could not accept his son’s death  and killed himself.)

Julie Woodward, age 17, was on Zoloft when she hung  herself in her family’s detached garage.

Matthew Miller was 13 when he  saw a psychiatrist because he was having difficulty at school. The psychiatrist  gave him samples of Zoloft. Seven days later his mother found him dead, hanging  by a belt from a laundry hook in his closet.

Kurt Danysh, age 18, and on  Prozac, killed his father with a shotgun. He is now behind prison bars, and  writes letters, trying to warn the world that SSRI drugs can kill.

Woody  ____, age 37, committed suicide while in his 5th week of taking Zoloft. Shortly  before his death his physician suggested doubling the dose of the drug. He had  seen his physician only for insomnia. He had never been depressed, nor did he  have any history of any mental illness symptoms.

A boy from Houston, age  10, shot and killed his father after his Prozac dosage was  increased.

Hammad Memon, age 15, shot and killed a fellow middle school  student. He had been diagnosed with ADHD and depression and was taking Zoloft  and “other drugs for the conditions.”

Matti Saari, a 22-year-old culinary  student, shot and killed 9 students and a teacher, and wounded another student,  before killing himself. Saari was taking an SSRI and a  benzodiazapine.

Steven Kazmierczak, age 27, shot and killed five people  and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University  auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking Prozac,  Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amounts of  Xanax in his system.

Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen, age 18, had been  taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more at  Jokela High School – then he committed suicide.
Asa Coon from Cleveland, age  14, shot and wounded four before taking his own life. Court records show Coon  was on Trazodone.

Jon Romano, age 16, on medication for depression, fired  a shotgun at a teacher in his
New York high school.

Missing from  list… 3 of 4 known to have taken these same meds….

What drugs was  Jared Lee Loughner on, age 21…… killed 6 people and injuring 14 others in  Tuscon, Az

What drugs was James Eagan Holmes on, age 24….. killed 12  people and injuring 59 others in Aurora Colorado

What drugs was Jacob  Tyler Roberts on, age 22, killed 2 injured 1, Clackamas Or

What drugs was  Adam Peter Lanza on, age 20, Killed 26 and wounded 2 in Newtown Ct
Roberts is  the only one that I haven’t heard about being on drugs of some kind.

Source: Natural News

Posted: January 16th, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Aurora Massacre, Connecticut Murders, Gun Control, Gun Rights, Guns, Sandy Hook Elementary School, Second Amendment | Tags: , , , , | Comments Off on What about the pharmaceuticals?

Hornik: Christie’s playing politics with school safety

By Art Gallagher

Marlboro Mayor Jon Hornik told NJ.com that Governor Chris Christie is playing politics by not supporting Marlboro’s decision to post armed police officers at each of their schools as a reaction to the Newtown, CT massacre.

“Unfortunately, I believe that if Governor Christie was not contemplating running for President or was not running for re-election, he would be firmly behind [Marlboro’s actions], but politics has had its influence on him,” said Hornik. “Politics can’t come into play when you’re talking about children’s safety. We need gun control in this country, and we need to get rid of assault weapons and multi-bullet clips. I don’t see a need for them, while recognizing the Second Amendment, at all. But the reality is that guns are out there, right now.”

Since the day after the Newtown shooting, Christie has said that he does not think cops at schools are conductive to the learning environment nor are such deployments the answer answer to mass shootings.

At the press conference for the Belmar boardwalk groundbreaking this week, the governor said that he would not take action to stop communities that decide to have police at their schools.

Middletown Mayor Gerry Scharfenberger told MoreMonmouthMusings that Hornik’s comments sound political. “Maybe Jon’s running for governor,” said Scharfenberger, “his comments sound just plain silly.  I don’t hear anything political in what Christie said.  He is sharing his philosophy and a lot of people agree with him.”

Hornik told MMM that he’s not running for anything this year. “I doing my job as mayor. No other office excites me. You never know what will come your way, but I am not pursuing anything politically.”

Posted: January 11th, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: 2013 Gubernatorial Politics, Art Gallagher, Chris Christie, Connecticut Murders, Gerry Scharfenberger, Jon Hornik, Marlboro, Newtown CT, Sandy Hook Elementary School | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments »

Hornik: Media was more of a distraction than police were as kids went back to Marlboro Schools

Today was the first day of Marlboro’s Cops in Schools program, the community’s first in the nation response to the Newtown Connecticut School massacre that claimed the lives of 20 school children and 6 adult staff on December 14.

Marlboro Mayor Jon Hornik told MMM it was just another school day in Marlboro, with the exception of the media presence and attention. “It was a normal a day as the first day back from vacation can be,”said the Mayor, “the police were not a distraction, however there was a significant media presence.”

Hornik said the media attention is a result of the NRA’s call for Cops in Schools nationwide, which happened a day after he announced the township’s decision to protect their school children with armed police.

Sharon Witchel, Director of Community Relations for the Marlboro Board of Education, told Marlboro-Colts Neck Patch that the cost of the 90 day program would be approximately $100,000.

“During the 90-day period, the district will review current safety and security practices and determine future improvements, which will include fiscal considerations,” Witchel said.

Hornik said that township officials and the school board will review the yet to be released incident report from Newtown before making any long term decisions on school security.

 

Posted: January 2nd, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Connecticut Murders, Marlboro, Sandy Hook Elementary School | Tags: , , , , | Comments Off on Hornik: Media was more of a distraction than police were as kids went back to Marlboro Schools

Marlboro Mayor’s Moxy

By Matt Rooney, cross-posted at SaveJersey.com

Marlboro’s Mayor Jon Hornik is standing by the community’s decision to introduce an armed presence into its schools, Save Jerseyans.

I admire this guy’s moxy!

Our Governor and other like-minded pols are opposed to turning schools into ”armed camps,” but I wholeheartedly disagree with their premise. It’s an logical leap, particularly when so many of our high schools already have a regular police presence. The fact also remains that there seems to be little or no political will on either side of the aisle to address the real problem: an over-medicated, under-parented generation whose less stable members are shielded from meaningful psychiatric action by asinine post-deinstitutionalization laws and administrative regulations.

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Posted: December 28th, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Connecticut Murders, Marlboro, Sandy Hook Elementary School | Tags: , , , , | 7 Comments »

LaRocca defends police in Marlboro schools

Marlboro Township Council President Frank LaRocca issued the following statement on facebook regard his township’s decision to assign armed police officers at the community’s schools on Januaray 3:

“If you saw an armed man walking towards a school would you call 911?  Of course you would, and maybe you would do even more. We have had police in our schools since 1999. This move is simply to put full time police in each school until the assessment is complete on revamping our school security. This is not armed teachers or lunch ladies. These are trained police officers. There is a need for gun control. The assulat weapons have no place in our society at all. But until the school security is brought forward, the police will be in the schools.”

Marlboro High School, part of the Freehold Regional High School District, has had a School Resource Officer assigned to it since 1999, according to Mayor Jon Hornick.

Posted: December 24th, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Connecticut Murders, Marlboro, Sandy Hook Elementary School | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments »

Will Sandy Hook get America to take brain injury seriously?

By Patrick B. Donohue, Founder, The Sarah Jane Brain Foundation,

According to a 2008 CDC study, 82.8 percent of male prisoners in Minnesota reported having had one or more brain injury over the course of their lifetime. Marlena M. Wald and her colleagues found the causes ranged from assaults (37%), auto crashes (25%), sports-related (11%) to falls (11%). Another study showed that 87 percent of a county jail population had a history of brain injury (Slaughter, Facc & Ehde, 2003). This study also showed that many of these prisoners experience mental health problems such as severe depression and anxiety. Other studies have shown co-occurring problems such as alcohol and substance abuse, suicidal thoughts and attempts as well as significant anger management issues for this population.

In 1986, Dr. Dorothy Lewis and Dr. Jonathan Pincus published a study of 15 death row inmates and found every one of them had suffered severe brain injuries in childhood, about half were caused by assaults and six were chronically psychotic. Another study of 14 juveniles sentenced to death found all of them had suffered from a brain injury, most in auto crashes but assaults as well. Twelve had been brutally physically abused and five were sodomized by relatives.

We know where this tipping point begins. Over 765,000 American youth suffer a new brain injury every year, over 80,000 are hospitalized and over 11,000 die annually. Every 40 seconds another American family enters an Emergency Room with a new brain injury. And these are the ones who are actually identified, when two to three times are not identified. These numbers do not include the tens of thousands of non-traumatic acquired brain injuries such as meningitis which President Obama’s daughter had as an infant to strokes, brain tumors and seizure-disorders.

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Posted: December 17th, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Connecticut Murders, Patrick Donohue, Sandy Hook Elementary School | Tags: , , , , , , | Comments Off on Will Sandy Hook get America to take brain injury seriously?

America Is To Blame For The Massacre In Connecticut

By Jordan B. Rickards, The Rickards Review cross post

I believe in the right to own a gun.  As a conservative, I believe in a right to be able to defend myself and my home, and I believe that right is all the more necessary in today’s America.  As a skeptic, I doubt that an outright ban on firearms would accomplish much more than to disarm the law abiding people who we don’t have to worry about in the first place.  And as a freedom loving person, while I certainly don’t believe in armed insurrection, I do confess discomfort with the idea of a world where the government controls all the weapons.

But I can’t avoid how I feel right now in the wake of the slaughter in Connecticut.  I feel angry.  I don’t remember feeling this way after Columbine, or Virginia Tech, or the Aurora Colorado movie theatre shootings.  I remember being sad and dejected, but not angry.

When tragedies happen, it’s natural to look to somebody to blame, and groups like the N.R.A. are always the first and easiest targets.  I’ve defended them in the past.  After all, you don’t see N.R.A. members committing massacres. That’s because, in addition to being obsessed about guns, they’re also obsessed with gun safety and education to ensure that guns are used in a responsible way, so that the right to own them is not compromised.

But in their seemingly reflexive opposition to even the most reasonable and common sense regulations, they fail to consider that maybe America as a whole is simply not capable of responsible gun ownership within the framework of the current regulatory scheme.  Or perhaps I should say, “no longer capable.”

Conservatives receive a lot of criticism for wanting to “take us back to the 1950′s.” That might not be a bad idea. I’m not talking about rolling back civil rights, or technological advances. I’m simply stating the obvious, which is that a lot of the problems we have today didn’t exist back then.  Families were intact.  Drug use was comparatively rare.  Cities were livable.  Violent crime was a fraction of what it is today.  Schools didn’t get shot up.

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Posted: December 16th, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Connecticut Murders, Gun Control, Sandy Hook Elementary School | Tags: , , , , | 5 Comments »

A Proper Response to the Connecticut Murders

By Dan Gallic

Let’s just say that I’m not a fan of guns. I don’t like them. I don’t like being around them. I do not like shooting them and I certainly don’t like the risk they create by simply existing. And yet, I’m also not willing to cede more gun control the appropriate response to the Connecticut slayings. Nor am I willing to discount it. Gun control, the debate and legislation offered, needs to happen, not because of the slaying but because it’s correct to debate gun ownership, limitation and use… all the time, not just in times of multiple slayings. And the same goes for those who think that this tragedy was caused by the decaying nature of a“godless” society, or whatever perceived spiritual deficit the spiritual among us choose to highlight. Ultimately, even the most atheistic would not condone such slayings, therefore, blame associated at a spiritual level is misguided at best. We rely on natural law to create a base of acceptable norms, even for those who deny it’s existence.

 

But no one can discount one over-riding issue that links every like event involving these types of mass murders, mental health. The Aurora, WV Tech and the Newton slayings all involve a significantly mentally ill individual.

 

We, as a nation, decided three or four decades ago, that we didn’t have the will or resources to create safe, reliable and appropriate facilities for those who suffer with mental illness. One reason we started to lose our appetite to deal with the mentally ill appropriately was the ever expanding definition that was being associated with the diagnoses. Eventually, every drunk and drug user was labeled mentally ill, and resources allocated to the mentally ill were quickly filled and demand for more and more and more resources taxed the mental health support system.

A history of tragic abuse in mental health facilities also came to light as mental institutions became the playground for every kook doctor who espoused a cure for mental health. With little or no oversight mental health institutions became a real life horror stories. One has to look no further than the lobotomy of Rose Marie Kennedy to demonstrate these abuses.
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Posted: December 16th, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Connecticut Murders, Sandy Hook Elementary School | Tags: , , , , , , | 3 Comments »