Handling Guns and Guns in the Home

Handling Guns Safely

• Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot. 
  
• Make sure the muzzle is pointed in a safe direction. Only point a gun at something or someone you want to shoot.
• Treat every firearm as it its loaded. If handed to you, check if it is or is not loaded, even if you saw someone check prior.

Storing Guns Safely

• Never leave a gun unattended.
• Unload firearms when not in use. Remove all ammunition from the firearm, including any rounds in the chamber.
• Keep your defensive firearms where you can get to them. Use a touch safe to allow those trained and capable in your home to access them quickly.
• Keep the firearm locked. Secure firearms in a lockable touch safe. I recommend one on the ground floor, one in the bedroom. Both safes should be secured to the home. These safes allow you virtually immedate access to your guns and ammo via touching the pads. For example, you program to tap index finger, middle finger, middle, middle as a combination. Many of these safes can do fingerprints as well, but I don't find them reliable enough. I prefer the tap method. I use a cable to attach my main floor safe to an appliance. The cable is secured inside the safe and the safe must be opened to detach. 

  

  Touch Safe
  

  
  
• Store ammunition in a lockbox or safe separately from firearms. Keep the keys to the firearms and ammunition storage in separate locations.
• Talk with children about what to do if they see a gun. Make sure they know not to touch it, but to tell you or another responsible adult.

VERY IMPORTANT Legality of Using a Gun in Self Defense

• The castle doctrine creates an exception to the duty to retreat before using deadly force in self-defense if the individual under attack is in their own home. The law in New Jersey allowing the use of force in defense of one's home or personal property (NJ Rev Stat § 2C:3-6 (2013)) follows the castle doctrine.
• For deadly force against an intruder to be justified, the intruder must have already used or threatened deadly force against the property owner or someone else present, or the individual must reasonably believe that someone else present would be in substantial danger of bodily harm without the use of deadly force.

Tip for using Guns

• Use pistols that you are comfortable with in or around the home.
• Practice. Practice. Practice. Even one month can degrade your skills.
• Keep a flashlight and the ability to turn on home lights available.
  
  My preference is a Maglite. 4 battery or similar. If I can't shoot an intruder, because there isn't a physical threat, then 6'1" and 275 Steve and the Maglite are the only option. Insert Rottweiler or Cane Corso if available in your home.
  
• Do not shoot anyone you have not seen/identified. DO NOT shoot sounds.
• Learn to move around your home in the dark.
• Any caliber can work. I recommend at least .380. For home defense, smallness is not as much a concern (.380 is small, for small carry guns), you should use 9mm, S&W40, 10MM or .45 calibers. I prefer 9mm and S&W40, both of which you can carry 10 or more rounds and have good energy to take down intruders. Note that current NJ law limits magazines to 10 rounds. A gun can have 11 rounds - 10 in the magazine, 1 loaded in the chamber.
• Which gun for you? Revolvers are simple, usually .38 or .357 (which can shoot .38) are the go to calibers. They are simple to use, reliable, typically accurate but limit you to 6, at most 7 rounds. Most people today use semi-automatics, but you have to learn how to use them, how to fix them in a jam, and how to change a magazine. They allow you to have 10+1 rounds in NJ, and more, 13+1 or more in .380, 9mm, S&W40 calibers.
• Shotguns, AR's and other rifles can be used. Note they are harder to use in the small confines of rooms, doors, stairs, etc. 
  
  
  
• I recommend ammunition designed for defense, such as Hornady Critical Defense. Critical Defense is designed to take down intruders without going through walls. Critical Duty, designed for law enforcement, has more object penetration abilities.

Get a New Jersey CCW Living in Manalapan

Get a Manalapan (New Jersey) CCW Permit 

First, this is complex and changing. Doing my best to prepare you.

Residents who wish to apply for a Permit to Carry can complete an application on the online portal website at https://www.njportal.com/NJSP/ConcealedCarry/

Concealed Carry Permits (njportal.com)

                Manalapan ORI NJ0132600 

                Freehold ORI Number NJ0131600

You need a 2x2 photo with a light background, digitized, like a passport photo. I can do one or Walgreens does actual passport photos. I believe Argentina passport size works best.

Other things you’ll need:

• 
  Firearms/Ammunition Card
• Drivers License
• Name, address and contact information (email and phone) for four references I believe. How long you've known them.

Needed Prior to Applying:

• Must have been fingerprinted for firearms prior to applying (you should have done this getting firearms/ammunition card).
• Completed and have proof of successfully completing Safe Handling and Use of Force Training for Private Citizen Concealed Carry prepared by the State of New Jersey and the Provisions of N.J.S.A.2C:3-1,
• Completed and have proof of successfully qualifying on a course of fire substantially similar to HQC2 (modified) included in the Private Citizen Concealed Carry Use of Force Training manual, utilizing a minimum of 50 rounds and receiving a minimum score of 80%
• For the above, which should be able to be done in a single class contact (Manalapan Fire) Chief Robert Hogan, rwh@cabinfirearms.com 
• Proof of ownership of handguns intended to carry (purchase receipt or purchase permit or a notarized letter of ownership listing make, model, and serial number of handgun(s).
• Handguns intended to be Carried Form. https://www.nj.gov/njsp/firearms/pdf/sp-182a_PTC_Additional_Handguns_Intended_to_be_Carried.pdf 
• Fees (please double check)
• $50 to be paid on the Permit to Carry Portal at the time of application.
• $150 Money Order or Cashier’s Check payable to “The Township of Manalapan” and memo: “Permit to Carry”. (you should be able to do that after you finish the app below).

When you have everything go to Concealed Carry Permits (njportal.com) and click Start Application.

Documents

• Sp-182a PTC Additional Handguns Intended to be Carried - optional, if you want to carry more than the gun you qualified with. You can, and some recommend, you actually qualify with all the guns you may carry.
• PTC Safe Handling and Proficiency Certificate - filled in by you, signed by RWH after course.
• Gun Ownership confirmation. Either a receipt, or type up and I believe you need to notarize something similar to the following:

Fred Smith

28 Somewhere Ln

Manalapan NJ 07726

(917) 555-1212

 

January 2, 2023

 

To Whom  it May Concern:

 

I am the original and current owner of the xxxx xxxxxx  serial number CC########. This is the firearm I qualified with.

 

Sincerely

 

 

Fred Smith

Get a Manalapan Gun Permit

 

                Manalapan Gun Permit Appliction 

You fill out the form to get the permit, and up to 3 forms to buy handguns. No forms are required to buy rifles. You have to use the forms in 90 days, and have 30 days between using each form. Get at least 2 IMHO.

If you have resided outside of New Jersey in the past 10 years, you will be contacted to complete an out of state mental health check request.

    Apply at https://www.nj.gov/gov/njsp/

    Manalapan ORI NJ0132600

You will need to take online instruction.

If you haven't been fingerprinted, follow instructions for fingerprinting.

You will need a passport style photograph. Best is to CVS or similar. I believe Argentina passport photo is good size. Get extra if you are going to go for CCW.

You  will need 2 references. Name, address, email and phone. How long you know them.

After completion of the online application a Check or Money Order written to Manalapan Township is to be dropped in the POLICE/FIREARMS drop box located outside the front doors of the municipal building. This should be done within a week after applying. Make sure the applicants name and confirmation number of is on the check or money order. Applications will not be processed without payment. Initial ID Cards cost $50.00, and Handgun Permits cost $25.00 each. There is no charge for Duplicate cards (lost , mutilated and address change). 

If you incorrectly entered your references e-mail address write an e-mail to firearmsreg@manalapanpolice.org with the corrections.

If you applied for a Firearms ID card, after approval, you will receive an e-mail from the NJ Portal with a link. This link will contain your new E- firearms ID card. You can print, save or screen shot your new E-FID card. Firearms ID cards do not expire. They are no longer paper cards.

If you applied for handgun purchaser permits, once approved, you will receive an e-mail stating that you have electronic permits. A licensed dealer will look them up in the system upon purchase. There are no longer paper permits.

From Tough to Karen in 100 Years

I run a large local Facebook page and its amazing to me how people complain about the smallest things. We recently went from our garbage being collected only once a week. We're in an uproar. Posts with 400 comments. Calling for the head of our elected officials (some of which that have run the town wonderfully for 10 or more years). It doesn't matter that theres only one other large town in our county that provides garbage pickup. For the same or more taxes. Today the garbage trucks came at 6 A.M. and woke someone up. The local chinese is terrible (I'm guilty of this I admit). The roads have some potholes. The power went out for 10 minutes. Someone sped by at 45. You name it we've got a first world bitch about it.

It makes me realize we've become Soft. Spoiled. Is it Adam Carolla's book "in 20 years we'll all be women"? Too late. If you had to travel somewhere anytime in history up to 100 years ago, you were uncomfortable, riding or walking. Braving the elements. You could easily get stopped and hurt or killed. Today we'll complain that the guy sat too close to us on the bus to the city. The 2 year old Toyota Corolla that will comfortably get you from NY to LA and back.. repeatedly.. at exactly 68 degrees, dry and safe... "NEEDS TO GO". Its not swanky or roomy enough to carry your butt, a lobster a dozen clams and a carrot cake from Wegmans. Mazda's rides too hard I NEED the Lexus.

In all the thousands of ears we've been on the planet you needed to brave the elements just to live. To keep a home warm and filled with food and protected. Wood had to be cut down, chopped, dryed and brought in regardless of the weather. You had to trudge to an out building because we only recently got indoor plumbing. You had to hunt and preserve food, sometimes all year long. If a fire broke out, you were pretty much on your own. And remember no running water. Cooling was at best a good wind. In the last 100 years we've gone to multiple cooling zone and piping heat into our bathroom floors and showers. We heat our driveways to melt the snow.

We went from thousands of years of carrying and heating buckets from the lake to instant hot water in just over 100 years. Our leg muscles didn't stay strong a minute longer than they needed to. Don't get me started that we now pay people to harvet our food and keep our lawns and flowers nice, but have to pay a whole new (Gym) industry to get us back in shape, in perfectly controlled 68 degree of modern comfort because we are on our way to 400lbs.

For thousands of year we had fire. Heck till 1960 we used charcoal. We have an oven, a broiler, an inside grill, at least one gas outdoor barbecue grill (sometimes installed in its own outdoor kitchen), an air fryer, a crock pot, a pressure cooker, a George Forman grill. We live better than we ever have before. And never have we apprieciated it less...

Electric Cars are All the Rage ... but can our infrastructure support them?

All of the car companies, along with the news and governments seem to be infatuated with electric cars. I'm not sure that we've thought out all the issues if we move to predominantly or exclusively Electric cars. Many of my friends want and love the sound of a U.S. V8 or a Honda V6. I know much of my Baby Boomer car people feel that way. Those that ride rip the standard exhaust right off our Harley-Davidsons, often before they come home, for more sound and performance.

I know that the generations after me feel the same, they also rip and replace the exhausts on their EVO's and Honda's. While it's not my treasured V8 sound, they want a car that stirs their emotion.

I know the sound of a car is trivial compared to the world wasting its limited supply of fossil fuels and clean air so let's get into the more important issues.

A 250 mile range simply isn't enough. I can regularly do a 300 mile or more round trip for business. My companies home office for years was 4 and 1/2 hours away in Virginia and I drove there regularly. Many will say "you can recharge when you get there", but my company was very cost conscious. We often moved between hotels based on the rate and I would have been very difficult to find a place to recharge my car for the trip home. Can you imagine my trying to get a ground floor room to try and loop an extension cord out the window to my Tesla? I often do day trips to central Connecticut which would stretch the limit on any electric car.

I have a friend who drives straight through to Florida to see family. This trip is 3 or 4 times the range of an electric car. It may be a bit of a humble brag but I have an ex that lives off a bluff in NYS. I have to leave my car down at the out building and take a 4WD up the windy dirt road to her home. The rickety outbuilding is not charger equiped. Electric is spotty and leaving it open to charge my car overnight is not an option. 

Having Trouble with your Internet Provider? The Solution is Coming!!!

Most people today are limited to one, if they're lucky two Internet providers for their home. One or a small number of providers results in poor service and high prices. Verizon Fios was to be an alternative to cable for many local communities, but Fios has years ago stopped expanding its wired Fios footprint.

Verizon has stopped expanding Fios because the end of wired Internet is upon us. Nicola Tesla was the first to show us that you could send electicity wirelessly. We transmit electricity and data over the air many ways today, for example we can charge our cell phones wirelessly. As we improve wireless technology home Internet is soon going to move from a cable or fiber to the air.

Most people currently use two sources for our Intenet, our 4G cell phones for mobile access and in our homes we use wired Intenet from Cable or Fios. The 3G and 4G speeds at our handsets are currently limited. 4G will support your phone and a some small number of computers or tablets attached to your phone, but 4G not enough to provide Internet for the modern home.  Your wired Internet provider, provides 200, 400Mbps, even 1Gbps (1064Mbps) speeds. You use your wifi router, to split that speed to the 20 or 30 or more devices in and outside your home. Becaue you don't use all the devices at the same time, and your router is designed to take packets from the busy devices and prioritize those, each device can get the 50, 100 or even 150Mbps it needs to provide quick service.

4G Cellular Internet Speed = 50Mbps

Home Internet Speed = 200-1064Mbps

5G seems it may be the answer to homeowners issue of having limited providers of wired Internet. 5G service will be much more like Wifi than cellular. 

First we should note that 5G is actually 3 types of technology. Low-band, Mid-band and Millimeter. Mid-band 5G will provide up to 1GB service and good range while millimeter will provide very high speeds but about a 1/4 mile of coverage. Millimeter is heavily effected by building walls. In the US, Verizon is begining with millimeter service but the providers and the analysts seem to believe that Mid-band is the 5G sweet spot.

5G will require cell towers, likely smaller than our current towers, every 1/3 to 1/2 mile. The benefit to this it will operate similar to Wifi. 5G technology will allow you to use a cellular 5G device in place of your current wired modem, giving you 500Mbps or more service over the air. Its also possible that  each of the devices in your home, each TV, phone and computer, could connect to the 5G network directly the way they connect to your Wifi network now. Optimum and many other providers have  similar capabilities today public Wifi hotspots. Given the limitations in the sheer number of connections to the 5G required to support the 30-40 devices in a typicall home, I forsee having a 5G device replacing your home cellular modem the more universal solution. Your modem and router consolidating your home devices into a single IP address. I believe we'll see a hybrid solution to allow remote devices, like a video camera at the end of a long driveway.

You can buy devices off Amazon to replace your Internet modem with cellular today, and T-Mobile is providing cellular based Internet service and equipment in select locations https://www.t-mobile.com/isp. T-Mobile's solution is a great start but its limited in the locations its available, and to LTE speeds.

What you'll get from this is that in the US alone, each home should have 5 or more potential Internet provicers - Cable, Fios, Verizon Wireless , AT&T, and T-Moble/Sprint (now one company). The competition for your home Internet, between Wired and Cellular carriers should improve speed and reduce cost. Stay tuned - the answer to "my Internet service is expensive and terrible" is coming..

Whats Right and (mostly) Wrong with Harley-Davidson in 2020

Episode 247 of Law Abiding biker kicked off some thoughts. 

Harley Davidson has been in trouble lately. My knowledge and experience puts me in a particularly good place to evaluate what they've been doing right and wrong. There's much more wrong.

• I'm a biker. 25 years, Road Captain at LE clubs. I spend my weeks figuring how to get out as much as I can on the weekends. And during the week. And for long trips..
• I'm trained as a business consultant, having spent 35 years improving peoples business process. I have an MBA in Finance from NYU Stern Graduate School and have worked for PwC, HP, IBM, consulting on marketing, sales and supply chain. My clients included helping Trev Deeley (Harley of Canada) design processes and systems to run the firm.
• I'm very computer literate, which is a big part of vehicles today.
• I grew up around cars, dad owning a gas station from the day I was 7. I understand how engines work and can and have built cars from just a body and frame..

To keep it as short as possible:

• Harley never modernized. From engines to forks to radios and lack of GPS. My 2012 Street Glide
  
  has no usb, no bluetooth, no screen and no GPS though most have been standard years before.  You can buy Indians and Yamaha's with overhead cams and water cooling. Harley's Milwaukee 8 is a horrible attempt to have pushrods actuating 4 valves with large claw like actuators. This gets Harley the improved flow of 4 valves per cylinder, but with heavy low RPM valvetrains. Modern engines use overhead cams to actuate light high RPM valvetrains that provide both torque and HP.  Another example of going halfway, Harley water cooled the heads to keep the rider cool, but that leaves the air and oil cooled motor without enough cooling to support performance improvements, like higher compression ratios.
• Harley wants to sell you a platform and then have you spend thousands to dress it up and get the performance to where it should be. Many things you should get for your $25,000 - decent exhaust, nice real leather seats, extended bags, etc. are all extra. The cowbells on many Road Kings, the first thing you see on the bike, are cast, no chrome or black. Boom boxes still need to be manually upgraded, often at a cost when Apple and Android update apps and maps virtually automagically. Harley would sell many more bikes if $25,000 motorcycles had good shocks, nicely stitched leather seats, real bar options and good performance. Harley wants you to buy the bike for $25,000 and add $10,000 in chrome, cams and power commanders. Racks and decent windshields that fit a big
  
  rider (Indian and others have standard adjustable windshields). H-D should sell you a $23,000 bike you're proud to ride and that can get down the road. People don't do much to Diavels or Chieftans or Challengers, they come nicely equipped. The Diavel has some 152 horsepower. Harley is selling bikes with less features, value and performance. That works when the H-D name used to cause lines for bikes. When you have solid competitors like Indian, Ducati, Customs and others, you have to give people great product.
• Harley can make a beautiful, well done, nicely optioned bike. They call them CVO's and charge $40,000+ for them. The $25,000 bikes should be more like the $40,000 CVO's and they'd sell a whole lot more.
• Closely related to #1, but too important not to repeat, riders don't care if the engine has a 45 degree v and pushrods. We're past that. Our F-150's have v6's with overhead cams and turbos.
• Give us good HP and Torque out of the box and sound like an H-D. An Indian Challenger with a breather and Cams and a remap can put out 145HP. You think you can get any (non-CVO) Harley to 145hp with a $1,000 investment?
• Harley already owns the technology with an assist from Porsche. Bump the V-Rod Revolution motor up a few hundred cc's and tune to get good HP and torque and you're there. A V-Rod with good exhaust is water cooled and sounds great. I don't care if you leave pushrod tubes to make the Revolution+ look like a V-Twin, leave them empty or have them flow oil to the heads.

            Harley needs to address the old classy style, like a Deluxe or a
            Heritage but they should be built like resto-mods. Old style
            class on the outside,  new technology, 4 valve overhead
            cam power on the inside.

• Expensive. Everything from clothes to service is expensive.
• Harley is badge engineering 20 years after General Motors showed it didn't work. We have Road Kings, Street Glides, Road Glides and Electroglide/Ultras with very little if any real differences. The same chassis. My buddy got a Road Glide Ultra as a loaner, probably one of the worst boring combinations of the Road Glide fairing (which I like) with the rest of the bike being the way too heavy for me Ultra.  While Harley is investing in potential new areas, the best two bikes in the lineup, those that are the Harley name, the Softail and the Tourers are badge engineered mediocrity.
• Make an attempt to give those people that want new modern styling newer designs. Perhaps a younger or more forward thinking audience. For example, Harley Saddlebags haven't changed in years they are designed to meet that classic look, design something that flows to the back and
  
  melds with a Street Glide fender, that covers the exhaust stock, it makes for better looking ride. You can have two tourer saddlebag designs, a fresh design might actually sell to a younger generation.

Many Harley guys, particularly the new riders that should be attracted don't care about the 45 degree V and pushrods that Harley is clinging to. Its not even clear they know what those parameters are. Recently my buddies loaner from H-D here was running like crap. He let a HOG member ride it to see what was wrong and the member of the Harley Owners Group comes back with his diagnosis. "Its running on only 3 cylinders..". No lie.