Opinion
New Jersey – -(AmmoLand.com)- RICO, noun: “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act: a U.S. law, enacted in 1970, allowing victims of organized crime to sue those responsible for punitive damages.”
Preferential: adjective: “Giving preferential treatment or having a preferential attitude shows that you are partial to one person or group of people. And if you act in a preferential way, it gives the person you prefer an advantage over everyone else. Preferential treatment could include giving one party guest the first pick of party favors, or a state government giving one school district more money than other schools.”
I remember back on March 26, 2018, gathering in the cold with fellow lovers of civil liberties and patriots in Trenton, NJ. We assembled at the war memorial, which is par for the course from what I gather for this sort of thing, and we gathered around a New Jersey state trooper who was there to give us some instruction. In short, he told us it was our right to be there, that they were happy to have us and to alert him immediately if any agitators showed up to create trouble. Fire trucks and other public service vehicles honked their horns and waved in agreeance with the 300 + assembled in the cold air nipping at our faces and spirits. Across the street was a series of port-a-potties, and I remember walking what seemed like for ages just to get there from an available parking garage.
Before the day’s event, the organizers tried to make it as clear as possible, there are no bathrooms, there will be no place to seek shelter, there may be port-a-potties, hopefully, and bring food or anything you may need with you. By organizers, I mean grassroots patriots not aligned with any one group, but people that came together as one. They had no funding or fancy web-blasts. They had personal social media and local podcasts to get the word out.
What does this have to do with anything? Well, I’m going to tell you. From an email obtained through an AmmoLand OPRA request into the office of New Jersey Governor Murphy’s office, W160618 Moms Demand Action Phil Murphy 6-25-2020, we can get a glimpse of how the anti-civil rights group of Moms Demand Action gets preferential treatment. Friday, April 5, 2019, Bett Sabo, the then-New Jersey Chapter Leader of Moms (currently the City Gun Violence lead: brettsabo.NJmoms@gmail.com) sent off the following to Carly Gruenberg (carly.gruenberg@nj.gov), Aide to Governor Murphy, Outreach:
“Hi Carly, I just wanted to check in and see if you had any ideas for National Gun Violence Awareness Day. Also, Moms Demand Action is having an Advocacy Day on June 27. Last year we were able to get a committee room to use as our home base. We’d love to be able to do that again. Is that something you can help me out with, or point me in the right direction. Bill was able to get it for us last year.”
Let’s zoom in on this sentence: “Also, Moms Demand Action is having an Advocacy Day on June 27. Last year we were able to get a committee room to use as our home base.”
What does this tell us all? It tells us that Moms Demand Action not only has a direct line to the Governor’s office, which is clear as day but that they also are afforded the ability to secure a committee room as their “home base”! Lobbyists can have a room in a government building to use?!?
AmmoLand has not reached out to the organizers of the March 26, 2019, Recall Murphy Rally, but if we had to guess, they were not given a “committee room to use as a home base.” I quite distinctly remember everyone freezing in the cold with the organizers meeting in different areas in Trenton because they were not welcome by the Governor’s office.
So future organizers, the person to reach out to in order to secure a home base is Carly Gruenberg (carly.gruenberg@nj.gov).
The preferential treatment between these organized and conspiring groups does not end there. In an email from Paul Crupi (paul@cignj.com), The Vice President of Public Affairs at the Capital Impact Group (the lobbyist firm used by Moms Demand Action/Everytown), we can see a glimpse of the “grapevine”:
“I have a quick question for you that I’m trying to track down – would you know if the Governor and/or lawmakers are doing a roundtable discussion tomorrow on ‘gun safety?’
We rep Everytown for Gun Safety and we heard through the grapevine that there may be some kind of discussion tomorrow but I can’t find any details on that.”
What I want to know is how to tap into this “grapevine,” as Mr. Crupi’s email to Justin Braz, Murphy’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative Affairs shows an interesting detail. The email was dated February 25, 2019, at 09:59 a.m. Any official announcement about this “round table” came from Governor Murphy’s twitter account in a tweet dated February 25, 2019, at 2:30 p.m:
“Gun safety has been one of our top priorities. Over the past year, we passed eight laws – from stronger background checks to banning ghost guns. Join me for a Facebook Live roundtable discussion on gun safety tomorrow, February 26th, at 2:30 PM. #GunSafetyNJ”
Gun safety has been one of our top priorities. Over the past year, we passed 8 laws – from stronger background checks to banning ghost guns. Join me for a Facebook Live roundtable discussion on gun safety tomorrow, February 26th, at 2:30 PM. #GunSafetyNJhttps://t.co/P7OUvgxJDB pic.twitter.com/iXKL7naPEH
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) February 25, 2019
Where was Mr. Crupi, a representative of a lobby group supporting anti-civil rights orgs, getting his information several hours before any official announcements to the public?
An item of note on this tweet, Governor Murphy received approximately 61 negative replies and ZERO positive replies. Most of the replies coming directly from citizens (not special interest groups hired to destroy our freedoms) were in opposition of further laws to restrict rights, aka against “gun control.” You are invited to visit the tweet and see the comments from real people.
This did not go unnoticed. The Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs (ANJRPC) put out a statement later that day concerning the meeting they were not invited to attend:
“ ‘How can they call it a roundtable when there was no one there to speak for NJ’s one million law-abiding gun owners,’ asked ANJRPC Executive Director Scott Bach. ‘They always talk about wanting a conversation about gun issues — this was more like a monologue. They need to focus on severely punishing violent gun criminals instead of targeting tools needed by honest citizens to defend themselves.’ “
Further from ANJRPC:
“Claiming ‘our work is not done’ and wearing a large red ‘F’ pin on his lapel to commemorate the ‘F’ grade he received from NRA, Governor Murphy declared as a goal for NJ to have the strongest ‘gun safety’ laws in the U.S.”
Not only are Murphy’s actions full of hubris, but he also advertises it by adorning himself with an “F.”
News Flash Governor Murphy, You Are A Failure For Many Reasons, Not Just Your Stance On Stripping The Law Abiding Of Their Rights!
Also, not in attendance, nor receiving a special invite was The Coalition of New Jersey Firearm Owners and The New Jersey Second Amendment Society. These groups not only specialize in real gun safety, they also teach and preach it! Real “grassroots” groups, not like Moms Demand Action, which advertises themselves to be such, while taking money hand over fist from Michael Bloomberg.
As ordinary Americans, Mr. and Mrs. New Jersey, if you will take a moment to reflect upon the inner workings of our State Government. See the outpouring of non-support from the citizens of The Garden State for Murphy’s agenda, with him still plowing forward to strip us of our constitutional rights. Bear in mind that there is absolutely preferential treatment from the Murphy Administration and these special interest groups looking to erode The U.S. Constitution, our Civil Liberties, and our abilities to protect ourselves. I urge citizens to reach out to the Governor’s office about this and his preferential treatment towards Moms Demand Action, to get his perspective – as well as the leadership of ANJRPC, CNJFO, & NJ2AS to ask for a committee room for future use: (609) 292-6000.
OPRA W160618 Moms Demand Action Phil Murphy New Jersey 6-25-2020
Related: Listen as John Talks to Polite Society Podcast About related OPRA’s from NJ.
About John Petrolino
John Petrolino is a US Merchant Marine Officer, writer, author of Decoding Firearms: An Easy to Read Guide on General Gun Safety & Use and NRA certified pistol, rifle, and shotgun instructor living under and working to change New Jersey’s draconian and unconstitutional gun laws. You can find him on the web at www.johnpetrolino.com on twitter at @johnpetrolino and on instagram @jpetrolinoiii .
