Gov. Chris Christie went on television this week and blamed Democrats for forcing him to veto a ban on future sales of a powerful sniper rifle, a measure he'd called for himself months earlier.

When asked during his second gubernatorial debate why he quashed the ban on sales of the .50-caliber Barrett rifle and similar models, Christie said it was all because of his opponents’ political treachery.

For “political reasons,” he said, Democratic legislators decided to make the ban more broad, which was unacceptable. “They need to understand that if they break a deal with me, then there’s going to be ramifications for it,” he blustered.

The Democrats later said they had no idea what “deal” the governor was talking about, and that he had provided no input on their proposal. Christie’s spokesman also declined to elaborate. So what’s going on here? Has the governor gone completely crazy?

Nah — he was just dancing for Jersey voters, most of whom supported this bill, in an effort to hide the fact that this veto was all about 2016. Truth be told, the “political reasons” Christie spoke of were actually his own. It was that letter he got from gun activists in New Hampshire, threatening his future prospects in a Republican presidential primary in their state if he didn’t veto the bill.

Christie knows that if he runs for president, he'll have to defend his record to conservatives nationwide. And most people who call themselves conservative Republicans said in a poll this year that they would not vote for a candidate with whom they disagreed about gun policy, even if they agreed on most other issues.

It was that calculus, not some Democratic snubbing, that made Christie veto the .50-caliber ban. After all, if there were some aspect of the proposal Christie didn’t like, he could have conditionally vetoed it and changed it to his liking — as he did with several other gun bills.

Instead, he killed it outright. Seeing how he once considered this ban important to public safety, why would he veto it simply to teach the Legislature a lesson?

There’s only one way to explain it, as Christie did himself: “political reasons.”

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