N.J. Gov. Chris Christie, who has expressed doubts in the past about the viability of “smart gun” technology, has declined to sign a bill that would revise that state’s smart gun mandate. He has offered no comment on this “pocket veto,” which cannot be overridden by the state legislature. The revision was intended to make the mandate less stringent, which many Second Amendment supporters saw as an effort to save an otherwise doomed law.
The current law mandates that only so-called “smart guns” be offered for sale in the state three years after they are for sale anywhere in the U.S. The new law would have replaced that mandate, which gun-control supporters claim is stifling innovation, with a requirement that every gun store in the state carry at least one smart-gun model in their stores. Sen. Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen, who sponsored both the vetoed legislation and the original 2002 bill, has said she plans to reintroduce the bill later this year.
