Murphy said New Jersey’s gun laws can´t stop the flow of illegal guns coming from other states. In order to control gun violence, the state needs federal help, the Democratic governor said, calling on Congress to act.

“This is a nation awash in guns, and we are not on an island.” Murphy said during a news conference Monday morning. “We are not immune as was proved two nights ago,” he said referring to the house party mass shooting.

As reported by nj.com, one person has been arrested so far and charged with several gun violations, including unlawful possession of a weapon, unlawful possession of a large-capacity magazine, and possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes, according to Cumberland County prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McRae.

“Something’s got to give in terms of gun safety,” Murphy said later in the day at his coronavirus briefing in Trenton. “Let’s put some common sense gun safety laws on the American books, not just at the state level. And I hope we get there sooner or later.”

You can read: New Jersey will lift indoor mask mandates May 28

However, gun rights activists have criticized the need for more regulating laws. “It’s outrageous that Gov. Murphy, while he’s surrounded by armed guards, thinks another gun law would have prevented these horrific and disgusting crimes,” said Alejandro Roubian, president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society.

Mass shooting demands stronger laws

Nevertheless, New Jersey lawmakers, as they have after other mass shooting, demand stronger national gun laws. “New Jersey has some of the toughest gun laws on the books, but unless Congress acts, illegal guns will find a way into our neighborhoods and more will die,” said U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J..

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said Congress “has failed to act” even though “the majority of Americans supporting common sense gun safety measures.”

In New Jersey, Murphy’s package of gun bills include raising the purchase age for all weapons to 18, banning .50 caliber rifles, requiring gun sellers to store information about ammunition sales and mandating that guns be stored in locked boxes.

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Joan Terrell-Paige, who is African-American, made the comments as a response to an online story about Jersey City fighting hate after the mass shooting last week where two members of the city’s Jewish community, as well as a store employee and a Jersey City police detective were killed in what authorities suspect to be a hate crime.

You can read: Deadly shooting kills six people in Jersey City

On the post, she referred to the Jewish community in the Greenville neighborhood “brutes” that have “threatened, intimidated and harassed” black homeowners.

The unfortunate comments also accused members of the Hasidic community of waving “bags of money” in front of Ward F black homeowners to induce them to sell their properties. Then she added that refusals to sell “were met by threats of ‘we will bring drug dealers and prostitutes to live next door to you. You will sell to us then.’

And even though Terrel-Paige ended her comments by saying that she was speaking “as a private citizen, not as an elected member of the Board of Education,” this did not prevent the strong official reactions.

On Twitter, the Democratic Governor Murphy urged her to resign from her elected position. “We will not let anti-Semitism and hate go unchallenged in our communities. In light of Ms. Terrell-Paige’s comments, I urge her to immediately resign from the Jersey City Board of Education.”

Earlier, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, who is Jewish, also asked Terrell-Paige to resign. “My opinion is she should resign. That type of language has no place in our schools and no place amongst elected officials,” he wrote on Twitter.

You can read: Suspected hatred gesture at Army-Navy game in Philadelphia

Explore  their message?

Terrell-Paige also claimed black renters were evicted 30 days after buying their homes by members of the Hasidic community “so that more Jewish people could move in.” And she suggested Jersey City officials were turning a blind eye to black residents. Then, she noted that the two shooters in the shooting, both black “went directly to the kosher supermarket.”

”I believe they knew they would come out in body bags,” Terrell-Paige went on. “What is the message they were sending? Are we brave enough to explore the answer to their message? Are we brave enough to stop the assault on the Black communities of America?”

No room for intolerant discourse

Jersey City Education Association President Ronnie Greco also agreed to her resignation and emphasized the non-acceptance of an intolerant discourse in the community.

“There is no place for that sort of hateful, divisive rhetoric in our schools or our Jersey City community. As we mourn the tragic events of one week ago, we should be calling for tolerance and an open dialogue and not casting aspersions, pitting one group against another group or attempting to justify the actions of cold-blooded murderers.

“While we respect the right for Ms. Terrell-Page to have her own opinion, we cannot accept her prejudiced and anti-Semitic sentiments expressed in her recent Facebook post.” Greco added.

The Facebook post has been deleted.

The post Governor Murphy calls for resignation of Jersey City school member over racist comments appeared first on El Sol News Media.

The unfortunate event caused the death of a 16-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy, who died in the hospital a few hours after the attack at Saugus High School.

The three teenagers who survived being shot at the Santa Clarita, California, high school Thursday are all on the road to recovery, officials said. They were a 15-year-old girl, a 14-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy

Officials reported that the three teenagers, who survived to the attack, are all expected to survive.

One of the students injured, a 15-year-old girl, was shot below the bellybutton and has a bullet lodged in her hip. Another 14-year-old girl was shot in the shoulder and abdomen while the injured 14-year-old boy has already been released from the hospital, officials said.

How it happened

Around 7:30, when students at the school were starting their first-period classes, Nathaniel Berhow a male student, on his 16th birthday, was in the school courtyard when suddenly he took out a a .45-caliber handgun pistol from his backpack and shot five classmates and then himself.

Captain Kent Wegener of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department told reporters that the whole event took about 16 seconds.

Paramedics rushed onto the campus, treating the wounded, and law enforcement officers searched nearby neighborhoods for a 16-year-old boy they thought had fled after the shooting. Authorities later said the suspect, identified by neighbors and sheriff’s officials as Nathaniel Berhow, was found on campus with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Officials said he was taken to a hospital and is in grave condition.

The scene at the school at 21900 Centurion Way was confusing, with teenagers walking in a line behind armed law enforcement officers with their arms raised in the air. Many of the injured were treated on campus before being taken to ambulances in the school’s parking lot.

One of the wounded girls was taken to choir teacher Kaitlin Holt by other students where she gave her first aid and called 911.

“I should have never had to treat a gunshot wound as a choir teacher,” said Holt. “And there’s something really wrong and something has to change, ’cause I held a bleeding child today in a room with 40 sobbing children.”

The consternation and dismay caused by this recurrent and regrettable act of violence has marked with profound pain the life of an entire community.

The shooting “shook every one of us to our core,” said Superintendent Mike Kuhlman.

The search for answers

“We have not yet established a motive or a nexus between the subject and his victims other than to say that they were all students at the high school together,” Wegener said.

Authorities said that so far there is no evidence to suggest the suspect acted on behalf of a group or with any co-conspirators.

Investigators were alerted to a social media page after the shooting that purportedly belongs to the suspect and contained a post that read, “Saugus have fun at school tomorrow.”

“I can confirm that that was posted to his account, and I can also confirm that it has been changed since this incident, which means there is somebody else that has access to this account , be it a hacker, be it a friend that has his password,” Wegener told reporters. “That was posted at one point. We are aware of it and we are researching the source, when it was posted and when it was taken down.”

The suspect’s mother and girlfriend are both speaking with detectives, according to authorities.

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