NEW YORK (Reuters) – The New Jersey Senate voted to override Governor Chris Christie’s veto of a gun control bill on Thursday, marking the first time either chamber of the legislature has overturned one of his vetoes since he took office in 2010.
Christie, who is running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, rejected the bill in August after it passed unanimously in both the state Senate and General Assembly. The governor has a mixed record on gun control, a hot-button issue in the 2016 presidential race.
The 80-member General Assembly, whose next voting session is scheduled for Dec. 3, would need to override the veto with 54 votes for the bill to become law. Democrats hold 48 seats.
The Senate vote comes after a rash of mass shootings, including one at a community college in Oregon that left 10 dead this month. The massacres have fueled a national debate over keeping guns away from people with a history of mental illness.
The New Jersey bill goes further than previous state legislation by requiring notification of local law enforcement prior to expunging the mental health records of people who want to purchase firearms.
Federal law prohibits the purchase of guns by anyone who has been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, but a judge can expunge that record if a person is deemed unlikely to endanger the public.
“I cannot endorse a continued path of patchwork proposals and fragmented statutes that add further confusion to an already cumbersome area of law,” Christie wrote in his conditional veto.
In a statement on Friday, Christie said he would support a more comprehensive solution that includes access to mental health treatment. He said Senate Minority Leader Thomas Kean, a Republican, is working on such a bill.
Democratic senators had hoped to regain the support of Republican legislators who abandoned the bill in the wake of Christie’s veto. In the final tally, the bill passed with the required 27 votes in the 40-member Senate.
Many Republicans said the bill would have had no impact on preventing recent mass shootings in which the gunman had not previously been committed to a mental health institution.
In vetoing the legislation, Christie proposed other reforms, including the requirement that a person previously involuntarily committed for mental health treatment demonstrate medical evidence of suitability to obtain a firearm.
(Reporting by Katie Reilly; Editing by Paul Simao)
http://news.yahoo.com/jersey-senate-overrides-christie-veto-gun-control-bill-132309557.html
comedy
“The massacres have fueled a national debate over keeping guns away from people with a history of mental illness.”
There is no “national debate”. There’s a scripted, propagandized, TV debate, but everyone in the nation is starting to realize who’s behind the mass shootings, and they voice their opinion on this non-issue in gun stores across the country every day.
WHAT “massacres” They were all hoaxes, jew controlled yahoo zio shill reporter. The zios have not seen a massacre – yet.
Too bad those bastards won’t own any media when the lead stops flyin’. We won’t be able to enjoy their bitchin’ cause none will be left to bitch. We’ve had this discussion and unanimously concluded that not one of those devil-worshipping son’s of bitches can be allowed to live. This vermin needs to be exterminated. Is there any argument here? ( Just so there’s no confusion, I’m referring to the joo menace.)
Even the New Jersey lawmakers know what a “butterbutt” pig boy is. Chris Christie, corrupt as the day is long, if he doesn’t explode from morbid obesity, won’t win re-election because a new poll in New Jersey shows that a majority of those living there still have 1 or 2 brain cells left. One “toilet aiming cell”, and the other, a no vote for Christie. (All apologies J.D.)
“I cannot endorse a continued path of patchwork proposals and fragmented statutes that add further confusion to an already cumbersome area of law,” Christie wrote in his conditional veto.”
Yet you have no problem with all the rest of the infringements already ‘on the books’.
Gonna need an exceptionally stout piece of hemp for your lard@ss.