If I ever get involved in one of those surveys, even as I have been the one to put up most of the Chris Christie YouTubes, that asks which Republican candidate you would never vote for, THAT’S when he would get my vote. Why? I detect Scott Brown with a wider waistband – from The Corner, a recounting (in part) of Christie’s sneers at the Second Amendment (emphasis mine):
The governor not only supported the 1994 federal “assault-weapons” ban, but he did so with an unlovely zeal. While running for the state assembly in 1995, candidate Christie described those who opposed Bill Cinton’s crime bill as “dangerous,” “crazy,” and “radical” peoplewho “must be stopped.” For good measure, he then willfully mischaracterized the soon-to-be-prohibited weapons as “automatic assault weapons,” which they were not. When the worthless federal ban expired in 2004, New Jersey retained its own version. Christie continues to support this, affirming in 2009 that he “supports all current gun laws” in New Jersey.
Christie is no better on other questions. He has consistently opposed concealed-carry laws that are now the norm in all 50 states, writing in 2009 that he “opposes attempts to permit conceal and carry laws in New Jersey,” and he recently expressed unqualified support for New Jersey’s one-gun-per-month law and called for all pending lawsuits against the rule to be “dismissed.” Until now, Christie has made no bones about his anti-gun positions. In an interview on Sean Hannity’s show in 2009, the governor was asked, “Should every citizen in your state be allowed to get a licensed weapon if they want one?” “In New Jersey, that’s not going to happen, Sean,” Christie replied. This, remember, was after the D.C. vs. Heller decision that recognized the obvious truth that the right to bear arms was an individual right.
Doesn’t matter that he decided that a ban on .50 calibers was too far (given the price of its ammo, it’s doubtful that many of the NJ street gangbangers could afford the practice range time. Yet now, he’s mellowing. Either an enumerated Right is a Right for all everywhere, or it isn’t; it doesn’t depend on if someone is running for President or not.
