PA Bill Number: HB2235
Title: Providing for regulation of the meat packing and food processing industry by creating facility health and safety committees in the workplace; ...
Description: Providing for regulation of the meat packing and food processing industry by creating facility health and safety committees in the workplace; ... ...
Last Action: Referred to LABOR AND INDUSTRY
Last Action Date: Apr 25, 2024
Christie pardons gun rights advocate as he courts potential GOP voters :: 06/09/2015
For the second time in two months, Governor Christie has pardoned someone convicted of violating New Jersey’s strict gun laws, this time a North Brunswick man preparing to become a police officer whose arrest became a cause célèbre for Second Amendment supporters.
Christie’s pardon — only his fourth in more than five years as governor — comes a week after he told potential voters in South Carolina that he supports letting more people carry concealed weapons even though his administration fought in court to prevent that.
The leniency, announced Monday by his office, comes as Christie is deciding whether to run for president in a crowded Republican field where being too weak on gun rights could lead to disqualification by an activist core of primary voters.
New Jersey advocates who want to make it easier to carry weapons praised the pardon, which came after a campaign that included an online petition and organized phone calls to the governor’s office.
But it will take more for Christie to win the fervent support of gun rights voters, said Alexander Roubian, president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society.
“The Second Amendment is going to be the most polarizing and discussed [issue] in the next presidential election, absolutely,” Roubian said. He said Christie’s record does not compare, for example, to such champions as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.
“Christie’s done some tremendous things to protect us, but there should have been more executive action, he should have done more to help restore our rights in this state,” Roubian said.
He said his group has been trying without success to persuade Christie to use the state’s administrative code to remove the “justifiable need” requirement in the law governing the issuance of permits to carry weapons outside the home.
“How about, for once, a Republican does an executive action and if it is unconstitutional, then the Democrats and the Bloomberg organization sue us and prove in court it was illegal? Why are we the ones having to lose rights and then having to fight in court to prove actions were illegal?” Roubian said.
To those who want to keep the state’s strict rules in place or tighten them, Christie’s actions are a sign he no longer is focused on New Jersey voters.
“It’s clear Governor Christie has left the state,” said Bryan Miller of the gun-control group Heeding God’s Call. “He’s very busy burnishing his right-wing credentials and will do most anything, including endangering public safety by giving pardons to people who don’t deserve them. This guy broke the law. It doesn’t matter if he wanted to be a cop.”
New Jersey makes it virtually impossible for anyone other than law enforcement to obtain a permit to carry a weapon outside the home. A 2013 appeals court ruling noted that a study found that in 2011, just 1,195 of the state’s 6.7 million adults were granted carry permits.
At an appearance in South Carolina last week, Christie blamed Democrats who control the Legislature for New Jersey’s failure to relax rules on carry permits. But when the law was being challenged in court, Christie’s administration defended the statute, even arguing that the Supreme Court should not hear an appeal after the law was upheld in the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.
Christie has also spoken out against what’s known as “conceal carry reciprocity” legislation in Congress, which would allow someone with a permit to carry a weapon in their home state to carry that weapon in every state.
Christie also has a mixed record with gun control supporters. After saying he supported a ban on .50 caliber ammunition, for example, he vetoed a bill to do that in 2014.
Christie, who was due to hold a town-hall-style meeting Monday night in New Hampshire, issued no comment when pardoning Steffon Josey-Davis.
A 24-year-old North Brunswick resident, Josey-Davis was authorized to carry a gun as an armored car guard and was hoping to become a police officer when he was stopped in Highland Park for having an expired vehicle registration in September 2013.
He had put his handgun in the glove compartment that morning because his younger sister came into the garage when he was holding it and he didn’t want her to see it. He told the traffic officers about the gun and after consulting with a sergeant, they impounded the weapon and let Josey-Davis go with a summons for the expired registration. When he later went to the police station to reclaim the weapon, Josey-Davis was arrested.
He pleaded guilty to a reduced charge to avoid being tried under a law that carried a mandatory prison term for conviction, but he lost his job as a guard and his chance to become a police officer.
“His life got destroyed by this New Jersey gun law,” said Evan Nappen, an attorney who handled his effort to receive a pardon. “Governor Christie has done the right thing and given him a second chance.”
In April, Christie pardoned Shaneen Allen, a Philadelphia resident who had a permit to carry a registered handgun and did not know it was illegal for her to bring that weapon to New Jersey from Pennsylvania until she was stopped for a traffic offense.
