Christie's Efforts to Distance Himself from
Gun Ban Zealots Comically Transparent
By Kurt Hofmann, June 17th 2015
JPFO writer contributor, © 2015.
New Jersey Governor and 2016 Republican Presidential hopeful Chris Christie is in something of a quandary. Already faced with the necessity of tacking radically in the direction of gun rights, after a career-long campaign to crush them, in order to gain the forgiveness of enough gun owning Republicans nationwide to secure the Presidential nomination, the murder of Carol Browne has added real urgency to that effort.
Carol Browne, stalked and threatened by an ex-boyfriend, did everything required by the state to get their permission to purchase a handgun with which to defend herself from him. As Rob Morse explains in Ammoland:
Browne had received threats from her ex-boyfriend. She did everything a law-abiding citizen could do in New Jersey. She obtained a protective order. She installed security cameras inside and outside her home.
Carol Browne
And she applied for a handgun permit. And she waited for the state to finally deign to give her permission to defend her life. And waited. And waited. And then she ran out of time. She was stabbed to death in her own driveway, defenseless and helpless.
Although state law requires the state to respond to an application within 30 days, they rarely do, and applicants can expect to wait up to nine months for permission to obtain the best means of self-defense. Ms. Browne called to inquire about her permit status after 41 days--and was told it was still pending. She was murdered two days later.
Sen Steve Sweeney
New Jersey State Senator Steve Sweeney is feeling the heat of voters' righteous outrage over New Jersey's "gun control" laws' aiding and abetting of her killer. When Governor Christie got a small taste of the same, he suddenly tried to transform his image into that of a stalwart defender of the Second Amendment, thwarted by the New Jersey legislature.
NJ.com reports that when a member of the audience at a speaking event asked Christie about the murder, and New Jersey gun laws' role in it, he passed the buck just as quickly as he could:
"I'm dealing with a Democratic legislature -- that's what New Jersey's given me," said Christie. "They have a very, very different view of the Second Amendment than I do. But they're going to have to answer for these things. There was, apparently, a protest this weekend, in front of the Senate President's home, for folks regarding the Carol Browne situation."
What Christie apparently hopes everyone has forgotten is that his own view of the Second Amendment is far closer to that of the state legislature's most zealous anti-gunners than it is to that of most Americans. As the rabidly anti-gun Olivia Nuzzi notes in the far-left Daily Beast, Christie's political career could almost be said to be defined by anti-gun extremism:
Christie's first two campaigns were run on his support of New Jersey's assault weapons ban, in place since 1990, which includes the 15-round magazine cap.
In April 1993, the future governor (then just a lawyer) announced he would run for the State Senate. He told the Star-Ledger, "The issue which has motivated me to get into this race is the recent attempt by certain Republican legislators to repeal New Jersey's ban on assault weapons...In today's society no one needs a semiautomatic assault weapon...We already have too many firearms in our communities."
Well, that was a long time ago; perhaps his position has "evolved" since then. In support of that notion, Christie could point to his 2013 veto of a bill that would have banned private possession of .50 caliber rifles.
There are, however, a couple problems with that. For one, several months before the veto, Christie specifically asked the legislature for just such a ban. For another, at the same time he signed the veto, he also signed ten new restrictions into law, including one that would ban gun purchases by suspected terrorists, without a conviction, without an indictment, without even an arrest or formal charges. According to Reuters, he was quite proud of it, too:
"These common-sense measures will both strengthen New Jersey's already tough gun laws and upgrade penalties for those who commit gun crimes and violate gun trafficking laws," said Christie, who is expected to easily win reelection this year.
Christie is no friend to gun owners, and if he really expects to convince us otherwise, has little regard for our intelligence, as well.
A former paratrooper, Kurt Hofmann was paralyzed in a car accident in 2002. The helplessness inherent to confinement to a wheelchair prompted him to explore armed self-defense, only to discover that Illinois denies that right, inspiring him to become active in gun rights advocacy. He also writes the St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner column. Kurt Hofmann Archive.
