Chris Christie wasn’t appeasing the NRA or 2012 Republican primary voters. And sadly, he isn’t anything resembling a “friend” to gun owners. A northeast Republican, Christie’s stance on firearms is as draconian as that of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The simple fact of the matter is that if Christie’s views on firearms were widely known, his chances of capturing the 2012 Republican primaries would go up in smoke.

How bad is Christie’s record?

Begin with an anti-gun campaign ad he ran in 1995 during his state Assembly run. Christie’s campaign dishonestly referred to the semiautomatic firearms barred under the Clinton administration’s “crime bill” as “automatic assault weapons,” intentionally misrepresenting hunting, plinking, defense, and target rifles as military machine guns. He accused candidates holding the most common conservative Republican position of holding views that were “dangerous,” “crazy,” and “radical.” He stated that the view, shared by Anthony Bucco and Michael Patrick Carroll, that the law should be overturned was a “radical plan to legalize assault weapons.” Not only was Christie’s position identical to that of the nanny-state scolds of the left, it was also based upon carefully crafted lies designed to elicit fear.