Gov. Christie vetoes ammo limit law in favor of expanded mental health treatment
The existing magazine limit in New Jersey is 15 bullets, one of ten states with some restriction on magazine capacity.
In his veto message, Christie replaced that restriction with recommendations for expanded mental health services, echoing the findings in a 2013 report from his NJ SAFE Task Force. Convened after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., the task force investigated the relationship between gun control, urban violence, mental illness, substance abuse, violence in the media, and school security.
Recommendations include changing what it takes to force someone into mental health treatment, whether inpatient and outpatient. They also suggested how to limit gun sales to people who have been committed. Training first-responders on mental health issues and crisis de-escalation was also suggested.
A spokesman for Gov. Christie declined to discuss the conditional veto, only forwarding Christie’s message to the legislature.
Phil Lubitz, associate director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in New Jersey, says the governor’s plan improves existing laws by getting people with serious mental into treatment earlier. “It’s the hope of advocates that the law would allow for early intervention so that they would not need hospitalization prior to imposing involuntary treatment,” said Lubitz.
https://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/70007-gov-christie-vetoes-ammo-limit-law-in-favor-of-expanded-mental-health-treatment
