Chris Christie’s state police has promulgated new regulations, including tinkering with the definition of “assault firearm” in New Jersey’s law to make it more strict. This means people who own guns that were previously legal in New Jersey are now felons. It’s also worth remembering that Christie signed the law which prohibited anyone on the “terror watch list” from purchasing a gun. They put it in the regulation, but I’m honestly not sure the FBI will even run that check for them.
The new regulations also add a bunch of new requirements for dealers, including requiring them to open up their records for the NJSP. Â I should note that I’m not all that much of an expert on New Jersey’s current laws regarding dealers, so I don’t fully understand how much this changes, and you can be sure that journalists know even less, and won’t bother to consult with actual experts (Evan Nappen is probably the foremost, and probably one of the only, experts on NJ gun law).
This is no way for Chris Christie to convince a skeptical base that his candidacy for the GOP nomination for President is a good one. As New Jersey governors go, Christie hasn’t been bad for gun owners. But as New Jersey governors go is a far cry from convincing primary voters in America that he’s good enough on the issue for them. If Christie does decide to run, this issue is going to dog him, and it should.
Does not matter, I will not vote for him. I would rather the country burn under the obvious socialists, rather than burn under a socialist viewed by the population at large as a conservative.
Right now, Christie only worries himself about the establishment GOP doners and their funding arms. Money talks, and they either do not care about the gun issue or are openly hostile to the little people having their guns. He probably compromised gun rights in order to get something else he wanted.
So Christie is doing what he thinks is in his rational self-interest. It’ll soon be up to us to demonstrate that such decisions are truly irrational. The GOP needs to also learn that gun control is a loser.
NJ gun owners fail to realize that these regulations will also allow localities to add as much paperwork to the FID application, and Purchase Permits as each locality sees fit.
Jesus… how the F is anybody supposed to make any sense of that? Is there a Cliff Notes version?
Yeah. “Don’t own a gun in New Jersey.”
Surely the proposed rule of invalidating a FID card for a sex change will get the transgender lobby up in arms, no?
These rules also re-classify shotguns, making you a felon if you have just one cosmetic feature the stasi doesn’t approve of.
NJ is already a joke for gun rights but if Christie goes along with these further infringements he will carry the same 2A baggage as Romney did, if not more. In the end though I don’t think it will matter as I don’t see him winning the primary anyway.
From what I remember seeing from Gun Owners Action League (GOAL), an MA-based gun rights group, is that Romney really got a bad rap on the gun issue.
From GOAL’s page on Romney, it’s fairly clear that they lobbied in favor of the 2004 “AWB” bill because it was a pro-gun bill. As far as so-called “assault weapons” what the bill did was ADD the expiring Federal exemptions to MA’s commonwealth-level statutes — keeping in mind the demographics of Massachusetts it appears that they managed a massive coup: MA’s commonwealth-level AWB had been largely devoid of codified exemptions, instead deferring to the Federal AWB’s exemptions. Given the imminent expiration of the Federal AWB, those exemptions otherwise would have gone away, thus GOAL managed to get a pro-gun bill (prevented a gun ban/maintained the status quo on “Assault weapons” while also including a number of other statutory improvements) through the legislature by dressing it up as if it were an anti-gun bill.
The only problem is that they appear to have been a little too successful in this deception for Romney’s future political career.
I understand the situation regarding MA’s AWB bill and that Romney didn’t actually sign a ban into law, however his signing statement, whether he truly understood what he was signing or not, still alluded to the fact that he doesn’t believe a certain class of guns should be owned for recreation or defense. Those are the kinds of things that give you baggage come primary time and it looks like Christie will have plenty of his own if this crap goes through.
I don’t think Christie could win the NJ primary, much less one in the south or west.
We elect him here only because he is the least bad alternative.
This guy’s a pompous, lying bully. We had one of these for governor in Connecticut a few years ago and we’re still paying for it.He bullied his people into tax reform, massive tax increases and a state income tax. Gun control, the toughest in the country. Like it prevented the Newtown massacre a couple of years ago. His name is Lowell P. Weicker Jr. The old windbag is still around elucidating on what a great guy he was. Check him out.
To be fair, Christie did bully the legislature into some tax and spending cuts. And when the teachers’ union went after him he got wonderfully belligerent with them.
But he does suck on guns and won’t be getting my vote even though I live in NJ.
Christie is a RINO. NJ is a dying state. High taxes, fleeing business, stagnant job growth, and a dismal outlook. He’s been a model for a tabloid style quick tongue’d leader who has accomplished nothing. I can think of so many names ahead of Christie, in face, he’s at the bottom of my list.
Most republicans fit the whole “RINO” fallacy. It would be nice to see more R’s step up and say with honesty how much their party is broken.
All Christie bashing aside, my take from some of the comments in the Star Ledger article about this story is that the Superintendent of the NJ State Police was putting out these regulations not the Christie administration. If that is the case, couldn’t this be viewed more as a stab in the back by the Superintendent, making Christie look anti-gun, right at the moment when Christie is trying to make himself more appealing to conservatives nationally.
I noticed that – all the sources say “Christie Administration,” not “Governor Christie.” The NJSP Commissioner has a LOT of power under NJ’s gun laws, and is technically a member of the administration, but this is not necessarily coming out from the Governor’s office, nor with his approval. But the Governor needs ot get in front of this and respond correctly. Which, sadly, he probably won’t, since he’s a former prosecutor and is disturbingly fond of things that allow “prosecutorial discretion.”
And the newspaper article out and out say “The rules, proposed last month by the State Police…” The headline is a subtle dig at the Governor. Which he needs to address
You’re right though, he still needs to get in front of it.
Kinda like the Brian Aitken and Shaneen Allen situations. In both he preferred to “let the system run its course” before getting involved. Well Mr. Governor, when the system in NJ is messed up beyond belief to begin with, that’s not really showing us anything other than the fact that you condone its draconian gun laws.
So, you’re saying that Chris Christie isn’t the boss who is in charge, instead he’s just a poor victim of one of his out-of-control subordinates who put out these regulations? Why weren’t they retracted within 24 hours? Among many other bad things, Chris Christie is a bully and a thug. He ignores our gun rights like he ignores his waistline, and he does as he pleases in both cases. The man is a piece of self-serving, ignorant scum!
Actually, as much as I don’t want to see Chris Christie win the nomination, I can totally believe that he’s not really in charge of everything and everyone in his administration. New Jersey is a very Democratic state. I actually have little doubt the state police commissioner has done this to put Christie in a pickle. The problem with Christie is it’s too easy for the Dems to put him in a pickle. I think he’s damaged goods, that’s why I don’t want him to win the GOP nomination.
“New Jersey State Police – Colonel Rick Fuentes, Superintendent – Biography. On Monday June 2, 2003, Colonel Joseph R. Fuentes was selected by Governor James McGreevey to become the 14th Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police.”
So, no, the NJSP Superintendent probably is NOT on-side for Governor Christie’s presidential aspirations…
This has been true at the Federal level for at least 50 years. The bureaucracy is overwhelmingly Democrat, and our current civil service rules mean that no President can really manage them.
Christie may not be bad for gun owners, he HAS vetoed some anti-gun legislation, but he isn’t all that good either. Not really much he can do with a Socialist Democratic gun-grabbing Legislature in charge. No, not for President.
As horrible as Christie may be on guns, odds are he is still an improvement over almost any Democrat.