I’ve seen this mailer making the rounds for a while now. I can’t speak for Chris Christie, but I’ve spoken to Rick Merkt at a few ANJRPC events, and don’t believe he supports this position any longer. He’s one of those folks who was duped by the fully automatic/semi-automatic confusion, and no longer supports the ban, and in the mean time has become a gun collector himself. Having said that, it’s a moot issue, because the ban isn’t going away any time soon. Commenter NJSoldier hit the nail on the head when he said this:
It would be great to replace Corzine with any Republican. Further erosion of our rights, and further wasteful spending would be halted. But to make real reforms and roll back the damage done will require some serious gains in the legislature.
Emphasis mine. That’s one of the problems I had with Steve Lonegan’s candidacy, is that he was telling people he’ll get right-to-carry through the legislature. It’s a nice thought, and I appreciate Lonegan being willing to talk favorably on the issue in New Jersey, but anyone who knows Trenton knows that bill is going nowhere, and Corzine will be happy to scare voters in November about Lonegan favoring all manner of gun wielding lunatics running around their kids soccer games, around churches, shopping malls, and restaurants waving guns around. In New Jersey, that rhetoric works.
New Jersey’s percentage of gun ownship is 12.3%. Compare that to Delaware’s 25.5%, Pennsylvania’s 34.7%, even New York’s 18%, and Maryland’s 21.3%.  Even Guam has a higher percentage of gun owners! The goal in the New Jersey’s governor’s race is to get someone in who will veto bad legislation, and give Second Amendemnt activists time to work on the legislature. The overall goal now is to stop losing ground, and see if perhaps we can gain in some minor areas that would allow that number to creep back up. Garden State gun enthusiasts need to mint more of yourselves. That’s going to be the only real way to turn things around. As much as I would like to be able to carry in New Jersey, or take my ARs over there to shoot high-power, your laws that make it tough for people to be introduced to the sport do far more harm than either of those things. I’d start there.
Wholeheartedly agree with you and NJ Soldier.
And, while this is a gun-rights centric blog, let’s not fool ourselves…Corzine has got to go, even if he was merely slightly anti-gun. Anyone who cares about any sort of freedom, firearms or otherwise, would be better off if Corzine sped off into the sunset without a seatbelt (reference here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,265741,00.html for those who don’t remember).
Wow – thanks.
I’m not sure I would trust a survey on NJ gun ownership. Until I had a firearm legally purchased in this state, I would have answered “no.” I’ve become a little paraniod since moving here.
I think the number is probably understated, but I think that will be so for a lot of other states too. But for political purposes, these are likely the people willing to identify publicly as gun owners, and it’s lower than other states. Even if it’s understated, I think it still need to be turned around.
***to make real reforms and roll back the damage done will require some serious gains in the legislature*** Hopefully, by stopping the one gun a month bill twice, it’s beginning.
Allegedly, Jersey City has 15k gun owners, in a population of 240k, that’s about 6%, yet Healy still won the Mayoral race, so not only do we need gains in the legislature, we need NJ gun owners to shake off the apathy, which might be happening, again, with stopping the one gun thing twice…….
Thank you.
There are two things that the governor can do (three, technically, I suppose) to help/hurt gun right in NJ:
Veto legislation
Appoint a different AG who will change the definition of “substantially similar” for the NJ AWB
Force the NJSBI to expedite firearms paperwork.
Everything else has to be done via the legislative process (or via SCOTUS).