Chris Christie, during Thursday night's GOP presidential debate, touted his veto of a .50-caliber rifle ban in his state, without mentioning that he was the one who initially proposed the legislation back in 2013 after the deadly Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.
"If you look at my record as governor of New Jersey, I have vetoed a .50-caliber rifle ban,"after rival presidential candidate Marco Rubio called him out on his stance on gun control,
reports Mediaite. "I have vetoed a reduction in clip size. I vetoed a statewide I.D. system for gun owners and I pardoned six out-of-state folks who came through our state and were arrested for owning a gun legally in another state.”
Christie did veto the bill back in 2013,
reported The Washington Post at the time, after initially advocating a ban on the future sales of the Barrett .50 caliber long-range rifle, saying the bill as approved by the legislature required residents who already owned the powerful assault weapon to give them up.
The bill, he wrote in a veto message, "will not further our collective fight against crime, but serve only to confuse law-abiding gun owners with the threat of imprisonment for lawful recreation. I cannot approve of that result.”
Further, reports Mediaite, Christie's office at the time
issued a press release about the state's "already stringent" gun laws, saying that the governor "has a comprehensive and responsible action plan to help reduce gun violence,” including "banning future purchases of the Barrett .50 Caliber (New Jersey law would ban any weapon that is substantially identical to the Barrett .50 Caliber)," and saying New Jersey is "one of only seven states with a ban on assault weapons while having "the third strictest magazine capacity laws in the country.”
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