Chris Christie has been trying to convince gun owners he’s not like all the other New Jersey Governors and politicians on gun issues, and to be honest, he’s not. Today he pardoned three more people, otherwise law abiding, who happened to run afoul of New Jersey’s draconian gun laws. Chalk it up to wanting to do better among GOP primary voters, but no other New Jersey governor has been willing to pardon honest citizens who mistakenly run afoul of their gun laws. These are not isolated incidents. These kinds of cases have been happening in New Jersey at a pretty regular frequency for years, and often these people just end up rotting in jail, their lives and families destroyed. So I will give Christie credit where it is due.
A tip of the hat to Charles C.W. Cooke over at National Review, who broke the story.
You beat me to it
Good on him for doing the right thing.
I’m still not voting for him, though.
Now let’s look for a governor who will do the right thing when he/she isn’t desperate to keep a plummeting political campaign afloat.
That’s a rare beast in politics. Most of them support gun rights because they feel it’s in their self-interest. I’m pretty sure that’s how most of them come to their views on anything, really.
The never ending story of the evil of New Jersey anti-gun laws warns the rest of the nation of what they have to fear if the anti-gunners win.
Governor Christie will be kept busy if he continues to pardon those poor victims of gun-control.
Trust but verify. How many pardons happened before he became a candidate for president? How many draconian gun laws did he sign into law? How many did he veto?
I have listened to his excuses. In example, he says he is a republican in a state with democrat legislators. He had no choice but to pass those laws. Really? In a state where you have to beg the government to own a gun?
He may be a republican but he is no conservative.
Most of New Jersey’s gun laws date back to 1966. The rest were passed by Governor Florio in the 1990s, during the first assault weapons scare. There was more passed by Skeevy McGreevy.
Christie is not responsible for the laws that are getting people into trouble. They were all passed by previous administrations. What he is responsible for is signing a “terror watch list” addition to New Jersey’s background check, probably because he’s a “law and order” Republican first and foremost. He’s vetoed every other gun control bill they’ve sent him, and they’ve sent him a few. It’s worth noting that post-Sandy Hook New Jersey is pretty much the same as pre-Sandy Hook New Jersey, gun law wise, and a lot of the reason for that were Christie’s vetoes.
Is he perfect on the issue? No. Am I supporting him for President? No. But he’s been better on guns than the last Republican governor of New Jersey, Christie Whitman, who actually had a GOP legislature to work with and essentially did jack shit for gun owners.
Vetoed every other bill sent to him means he passed at least half of them. He has done nothing to promote the repeal of the rest of the draconian laws and has not become active in doing anything about these laws except pardons until his presidential race. To me, he is just a RINO.
Is it a good thing that he is doing now? YOU BET! He would have been more convincing that he would have done more at the first day of being elected rather than go along to get along, like a LOT of republicans these days. The people at large are showing signs of finally being done with that kind of politics.
So, has he promoted being anti gun in his time in office, you bet. Can a bird change the color of his feathers? You bet. Has he changed his? I think not. Its obvious pandering to me.
“Vetoed every other bill sent to him means he passed at least half of them”
Uhhhh… ?
Yeah LOL. If he vetoed EVERY bill that would be a good thing. Veto every other one is only 50% or half.
Except that he didn’t do that. He signed one bill, and then vetoed like 6 other gun control bills, most of which were far worse than what he signed.
He just vetoed a bill sent to him with 0 Nay votes in either house (some kind of mental health thing). The veto was sustained (which means some of the Rs in the legislature voted Aye for the bill but Nay for the veto override).
So he’s 6 vetos and 1 signature of gun control. I’m still not going to vote for him in the primaries (unless it’s between him and, say, Trump, and even then I might stay home), but that’s not a terrible record.
Depends on your definition of “every other”. You’re using the “sign, veto, sign, veto” meaning, meaning Christie signed half of the bills. Sebastian is using the “all else” meaning, meaning Christie signed one, but vetoed all the rest.
Bottom line: Christie was sent at least seven “gun control” bills, of which he signed one and vetoed six. That’s a better track record than most NRA-endorsed “pro-gun” politicians (looking at you, Harry Reid).
I am going to say this tho. All of you who say you wont support Christie had better wake up and smell the coffee. If he becomes the nominee and he is the guy to run against the democrat (socialist party) then you had better damn well swallow what ever that is sticking in your craw and vote FOR CHRISTIE!
We absolutely DO NOT NEED ANOTHER OBAMA TERM! Which is exactly what we will get if the democrats win,,,, or worse.
This non support for someone who wasn’t your pick is exactly how we got a second Obama term in the first place.
Am I bashing Christie? Yes.
Will I support him IF it comes to that? YES!!
What will the rest of you do? Hand this next election to the democrats? I certainly hope not.
More or less my position, at this point. There are some R primary candidates I will vote 3rd party before I vote for them in the general, but I haven’t (yet) put Governor Christie on that list
Voting 3rd party is the same as not voting at all. Third party never wins and gives the dems another one vote advantage. This is the problem with the Republican party. They will never solidify together like the dems do and just get butt hurt to easy and too fast to cut their own nose off to spite their face.
The reasonable and practical way to advance gun rights is to fight for the nominee of your choice during the primary season, then vote for whomever the Republican turns out to be during the general election. Yes, even if that nominee turns out to be Christie, even as that nominee turned out to be Romney.
Because as untrustworthy and anti-gun as people like Christie and Romney are, they are still better than virtually any Democrat. And just as important, when a party elects a President busloads of other people from the party staff the White House too, and that matters almost as much as who is President.
The real stakes for gun-rights in 2016 is not even who is elected President, but which party will control filling vacancies in the Federal Court system. A Democrat President will choose from a farm of Lefty nominees, while a Republican President will choose from a farm of more conservative nominees. Remember it was Bush nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court which finally gave us the margin to narrowly win the DC v Heller and McDonald v Chicago cases.
A Democratic President could kill the 2nd Amendment via the U.S. Supreme Court, just as the 14th Amendment was nullified for decades by the Slaughter-House cases of 1873.