New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a gun control bill Wednesday that would have reduced the legal ammunition capacity from 15 to 10 rounds in the state, saying it would do little to stem gun violence, the Washington Times reported.
In his veto message, the Republican governor rejected the idea that limiting the number of bullets that guns can hold will put an end to mass shootings, calling it a "simplistic" and "trivial" approach. "It simply defies common sense to believe that imposing a new and entirely arbitrary number of bullets that can be lawfully loaded into a firearm will somehow eradicate, or even reduce, future instances of mass violence," said Christie, whose looking to run as a potential candidate for president in 2016. "Nor is it sufficient to claim that a 10-round capacity might spare an 11th victim."
The move came less than an hour after supporters of the bill, including parents of children killed in the 2012 Newtown, Conn., school shooting, dropped off 55,000 signatures of people from around the country, including 10,000 from New Jersey, urging him to sign the measure at his office, according to NJ.com.
Instead of the proposed bill, which passed along party lines in May, Christie suggested a series of reforms to mental illness treatment, including a new standard that would make it easier to commit people involuntarily, Huffington Post reported. "Mass violence will not end by changing the number of bullets loaded into a gun," said Christie. However, gun control advocates argued that the bill's limitations would require shooters to stop and reload more often, giving police and potential victims more time to react and making mass shooting less deadly.
Although several firearms bills were signed by the governor in 2013, some of the more contentious ones have been issued with conditional vetoes, including a ban on .50-caliber rifles.
Meanwhile, Christie's decision was condemned by democratic Assembly Majority Leader Louis Greenwald, a lead sponsor of the legislation, who suggested Christie was pandering to the primary voters he may end up courting. "The governor's action today can best be described with the words used in his own veto statement, 'difficult choices are brushed aside.uncomfortable topics are left unexplored.' I would imagine this is a very uncomfortable topic to have with conservative voters in Iowa and New Hampshire," he said.
"This veto sounds like it was geared more for a national audience, rather than crafted for the streets of New Jersey," added Senate President Steve Sweeney, a Democrat.
