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Old March 17, 2018, 02:00 PM   #1
In The Ten Ring
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Way to go New Jersey!

NJ school suspends students for going to a gun range and posting pics of it.

https://ijr.com/2018/03/1076494-hs-s...egal-firearms/

Bigger thing to consider. How to shun all gun owners from everything.

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/...+Guerrillas%29
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Old March 17, 2018, 02:03 PM   #2
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Time for a lawsuit.

Ironically, even the ACLU would probably step up to the plate on this. Punishing kids for engaging in completely lawful activity off school property and not on school time can't be legal/constitutional.
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Old March 17, 2018, 02:09 PM   #3
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Let's hope so Aguila but the fact remains, legal action is costly, tiring, emotionally hard, and tends to take a very long time to get results. When one is suing the state, it can take years to get anywhere.

NJ doesn't have to win the case, they just have to make it very frightening to live openly as a gun owner and for these kids, they may have done just that.
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Old March 17, 2018, 02:17 PM   #4
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That's why I hope the parents approach groups such as the Second Amendment Foundation, the NRA, and even the ACLU. The ACLU has been known to take cases such as this, where the laws or regulations covering something generally in line with the ACLU's general political orientation are so egregiously restrictive that even the ACLU can't stomach them. This would seem to be such a regulation. It can't (I sincerely hope) be legal for a school board to regulate what hobbies students can engage in and what inanimate objects they can legally possess when they are not in school and under direct control of the school, acting in loco parentis. When the kids are under the control of their own parents, in loco parentis does not apply.
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Old March 18, 2018, 05:45 PM   #5
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The lawyer for the ANJRPC has it exactly right and the denials from the school official are meaningless since they are based on semantics. The policy is clearly unconstitutional and the lawyers for the district are busy telling the administration that as we speak.

Denying a student a free and appropriate public education for an unconstitutional reason constitutes an unlawful taking since education has value. Cases based on this angle have already been to court and our district lives in fear of them.
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Old March 18, 2018, 08:04 PM   #6
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Trying to make it against school regulation when students participate in a lawful activity during non school hours is even more inane than NJ usually gets. The administration andscholboardshould have to make a public apology to the suspended students.
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Old March 18, 2018, 08:29 PM   #7
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Yes NJ is the worst when it comes to gun laws. They are 2 steps away from telling all of us legal gun owners that we cant buy any more guns.. The new govn we now have is talking about making our 15 round mag illegal cause we only need 5 round mags.. Dont ask me what we would have to do about revolvers... But NJ is only holding me here against my will for 2 more years... Then off to a free state..

I did just hear that the school has backed down because of the threat of the lawsuit. And thats good but the problem is there wont be a story on the news or internet how the school backed down or how it was in the wrong for getting involved in there students personal life when there is nothing wrong. So with that said the damage is already done.
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Old March 18, 2018, 08:36 PM   #8
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tynman,

I hope your next state treats you well. Let NJ sink.

Great to hear the school rethought their actions.

It's going to take social media competition to get the honest word out.
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Old March 18, 2018, 09:34 PM   #9
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Lacey township kids prohibited from hunting

NJ allows hunting beginning age 10. According to the Lacey township education system kids are not allowed to hunt because hunters use weapons such as shotguns and bows during the academic year. If a Lacey township student brings home a deer or duck and tells their friends about it the student is subject to discipline.

A sad and poorly executed application of zero tolerance.
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Old March 19, 2018, 12:10 AM   #10
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A NJ gun rights organization has entered the arena:

http://www.nj.com/ocean/index.ssf/20...tudents_a.html
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Old March 19, 2018, 03:00 AM   #11
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And now the school is denying it happened......a common tactic when spineless leaders are exposed.

Looks like a win for the students and a win for freedom of expression.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/18...nge-photo.html
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Old March 19, 2018, 03:19 AM   #12
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I escaped from NJ 40 years ago. I'm now living in Arizona where you can still walk around with a gun on your hip or concealed without a permit. I've seen more than one manufacturer move here in the past few years because of our gun friendly policies. Come on out. It's a great place to live, no snow to shovel and you can't miss all the sites in the state.
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Old March 19, 2018, 03:58 AM   #13
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One of the most fun GF's I've ever had lived in NJ.....I told her up front I would not visit her there because of NJ's ban on basic human rights. We've since stopped going out and she's moved...to GA and plans to get her CCW. (I suspect she'll still vote Dem all the way though, which is why southern cities tend to run blue).

AZ has the added benefit of your vehicles not rusting.
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Old March 19, 2018, 06:00 AM   #14
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If it had been my child, I'd have had a lawsuit filed before officials could say "punitive damages." I haven't done the research to determine what all has been litigated as against schools, but I think the ANJRPC has it nailed down pretty well. I can't see any way that it's legal and constitutional for a school to penalize students for going to a range that's off school property, during non-school hours, with their parents, and engaging in a constitutionally-protected activity, in the absence of any threats or other illegal behavior. I'll be watching this one. School overreach has bothered me for a long time.
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Old March 19, 2018, 07:18 AM   #15
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As Spats notes there would have been a lawsuit. Actual damaged would be noticeable: the stress and emotional damage caused would have required me to move out of state, take a lower paying job, and expect full compensation for the damage to my career plus punitive damages. The problem of course is administrators will not care because the damages will come from the school district and not them personally.

While I get that people live there for other reasons and travel there for other reasons a very public "boycott New Jersey" campaign seems in order.
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Old March 19, 2018, 07:37 AM   #16
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They should have suspended kids who ditched class to go to the so called protest.
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Old March 19, 2018, 08:20 AM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lohman446 View Post
. . . .The problem of course is administrators will not care because the damages will come from the school district and not them personally. . . .
Typically, punitive damages in civil rights litigation is leveled at the individual, not the employing entity. That said, if there's some kind of insurance or risk management program or policy, the parties can restructure the damages so as to absorb that cost. If the individual's behavior was particularly egregious, the program will not do so. Then again, if the individual's behavior was particularly egregious, the policy may throw the individual to the wolves and refuse to defend them.
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Old March 19, 2018, 09:30 AM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Spats McGee
I'll be watching this one. School overreach has bothered me for a long time.
What I find extraordinary is that the school administrators thought it would be a good idea to prevent these students from sitting for their advanced placement tests. In my state, it is a requirement of an AP class that the student take the standardized AP test at the end; that's what makes it an AP class.

By preventing the students from taking a required test, have they screwed up their record irreparably?
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Old March 19, 2018, 10:08 AM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by In The Ten Ring
And now the school is denying it happened......a common tactic when spineless leaders are exposed.

Looks like a win for the students and a win for freedom of expression.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/18...nge-photo.html
Not so fast. The article says the school claims "Information posted on social media is incorrect.” It doesn't say the students weren't suspended, and it doesn't say the suspensions (if they happened) have been or will be reversed and deleted from the students' records. We need more information.
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Old March 19, 2018, 10:35 AM   #20
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Quote:
it doesn't say the suspensions (if they happened) have been or will be reversed and deleted from the students' records
Would not entirely solve the issue after the fact
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Old March 19, 2018, 11:31 AM   #21
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Originally Posted by zukiphile View Post
What I find extraordinary is that the school administrators thought it would be a good idea to prevent these students from sitting for their advanced placement tests. In my state, it is a requirement of an AP class that the student take the standardized AP test at the end; that's what makes it an AP class.

By preventing the students from taking a required test, have they screwed up their record irreparably?
It's also my understanding that AP tests are not free, and they're not cheap. Potentially, school administrators have injured these students and their parents: (1) financially; (2) in terms of their academic record; (3) in terms of college prospects. Heck, if I were a plaintiff's lawyer, I'd be arguing that their lifetime earning potential had been irreparably harmed.
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Old March 19, 2018, 12:43 PM   #22
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It appears the policy has been changed: http://anjrpc.site-ym.com/general/cu...RPCWinsReLacey

You can find the new policy in the student handbook here: https://www.laceyschools.org/lths
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Old March 19, 2018, 12:47 PM   #23
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this will go nowhere. the kid will go back to school, have a stain on his record through no fault of his own, and the school gets to say oops, sorry.
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Old March 19, 2018, 12:55 PM   #24
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Given the change in the policy, I'd be willing to bet that any mark on the students' records will be wiped clean. If the school district wipes this from their records and makes arrangements for them to take those AP exams, then it at least has an argument that they haven't suffered any cognizable injury. No cognizable injury = no standing = lawsuit dies in its tracks.
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Old March 19, 2018, 12:56 PM   #25
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jerry
this will go nowhere. the kid will go back to school, have a stain on his record through no fault of his own, and the school gets to say oops, sorry.
I can't promise you that your prediction will be wrong, but the following militates against that result.

The school change in policy so quickly when challenged can indicate that they didn't engage in sufficient consultation before in forming the policy and implementing it, or they did consult sufficiently but proceeded irresponsibly anyway, and they knew they were wrong.

This could have been a mere fender bender, an overstep taken tentatively, announced and retracted before the harm was imposed. Instead, the school seems to have realised it was in a fender bender, then run to the car it hit to set it on fire. Some functionary thought it would be clever to use all of his very modest power to do irreparable harm.

Since there is money in that kind of malice, it may not just blow away.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Spats Mcgee
Given the change in the policy, I'd be willing to bet that any mark on the students' records will be wiped clean. If the school district wipes this from their records and makes arrangements for them to take those AP exams, then it at least has an argument that they haven't suffered any cognizable injury. No cognizable injury = no standing = lawsuit dies in its tracks.
Emphasis added. That would make the most sense if possible.

I don't know how this works now. My recollection is that I had to go to a local college to take this, as if AP testing wasn't run by the school in which the class is given, but by some other authority.
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