Christie vetoes gun bill related to mental health

Aug. 15--TRENTON -- Gov. Chris Christie this week shot down a bill that had been passed unanimously that would have required prospective gun buyers to notify the police if they sought to expunge mental health records.

Christie conditionally vetoed the bill, rewriting it into a set of mental-health treatment reforms he proposed last year in vetoing a bill seeking to reduce the maximum size of gun magazines. His proposal hasn't been acted on by lawmakers.

"I cannot endorse a continued path of patchwork proposals and fragmented statutes that add further confusion to an already cumbersome area of law. Instead, we must seek real reform," Christie said in his veto message.

Under terms of a state law Christie signed in 2013, New Jersey is required to provide mental health records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, in compliance with federal laws passed in 1993 and 2007. It has transmitted 425,000 records of mental health adjudications dating back to the 1970s.

Would-be gun buyers who were formerly committed to a mental institution but have since recovered may be ineligible to legally buy a firearm because of the mental health records, but a judge can direct the record to be expunged from NICS if he or she finds that the applicant isn't likely to act in a dangerous manner.

Applicants seeking an expungement do so in the state that submitted the record to NICS and must notify officials at their former institution and the county adjuster. The vetoed bill would have added law-enforcement agencies to the notification list, such as the state attorney general, county prosecutor and municipal chief of police for the place they currently reside.

Christie's conditional veto includes a provision that a person who had been involuntarily committed to mental health treatment must demonstrate to a judge adequate medical evidence of suitability to obtain a firearms purchaser identification card, such as a certificate from a medical doctor or psychiatrist.

"Our laws are obsolete, inflexible, and need to be updated to match our modern world and its changing mental health landscape," said Christie.

The bill was passed by the Legislature in the spring by votes of 38-0 in the Senate and 74-0 in the Assembly. Two senators skipped voting on the bill, and six Assembly members were absent. Such margins would be enough to override a veto, though in the past Republicans have voted to sustain vetoes after initally supporting passage of the bill.

Legislators haven't announced whether they will seek to override Christie's veto, go along with his changes or allow the bill to die.

The bill is far from the first to be vetoed by Christie after being unanimously passed by the Legislature. Indeed, it wasn't even the only such bill rejected Monday, as Christie also conditionally vetoed a plan to deter student-athletes from using steroids and performance enhancing drugs by deleting a $45,000 appropriation to pay for random testing.

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