LINDEN — The 60-inch sniper rifle is longer than the folding table on which it sits, a massive 35 pounds of matte black chrome propped up by removable front legs. Next to it lie three 4-inch-long, .50 caliber bullets. Together, they are capable of taking down a small aircraft.

And you can buy one right now if you live in New Jersey — even if you’re on the federal terrorist watch list.

This afternoon, standing in the shadow of so-called “soft targets” in Linden — chemical tanks, processing plants and the city’s airport — politicians and advocates called upon Gov. Chris Christie to sign two gun control bills into law in the name of national security.

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For supporters, they are among the most commonsense legislation in the stack of gun control bills sitting on the governor’s desk: Deny the sale of firearms to those on the federal terrorist watch list, and ban the sale of massively powerful .50 caliber weapons.

“An elected official’s first responsibility is public safety,” said Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Bergen), a sponsor of the bill banning the high-caliber weapons (A3659). “And this flies in the face of public safety.”

A 2009 study by the Government Accountability Office showed that of 1,400 people on the terrorist watch list that had tried to purchase firearms, 1,300 were successful, said Robert Tessaro, former national law enforcement director of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The gunman in the Fort Hood mass shooting was able to purchase a gun and kill 13 people despite being investigated by the FBI for his connections to terrorists, according to Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Union), who sponsored the federal terrorist watch list ban (A3687).

Christie has been feuding on a national stage with fellow 2016 Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a staunch libertarian, about the balance of national security versus privacy rights. Paul called the warrantless surveillance of Americans “unconstitutional.”

“I just want us to be really cautious, because this strain of libertarianism that’s going through both parties right now and making big headlines, I think, is a very dangerous thought,” Christie said at an event in Colorado last week. “I think what we as a country have to decide is: Do we have amnesia? Because I don’t. And I remember what we felt like on Sept. 12, 2001.”

A plane flies overhead to land at the nearby Linden airport. Advocates say a plane like this could be susceptible to being taken down by a .50 caliber weapon.

Gun rights advocates say the two bills are simply "deflecting" from real issues of illegal gun violence in New Jersey's cities.



"They're trying to deflect attention away from the fact that the've been incompetent to stop the real problems of violence in New Jersey," said Frank Jack Fiamingo, the president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society. "A terrorist who's hell-bent on blowing the Linden refinery is going to find a way to do it."

Still, supporters of the bills say Christie’s only logical choice given his pro-security stance would be to sign the two bills, which they say have clear and direct connections to terroristic threats.

“Fifty-caliber weapons are not made to shoot people, they’re made to destroy targets,” said Bryan Miller with the group New Jerseyans for Safety from Gun Violence. “New Jersey is full of such material targets.”

To press that fact, today’s event was held at a public park within shouting distance of both a small airport, which sent noisy planes and State Police helicopters flying overhead throughout, and a cluster of giant cylindrical tanks filled with chemicals.

“This is a target-rich environment, and it’s open to the public,” said State Sen. Nicholas Scutari, a Linden native and sponsor of the watch list ban.

The legal-to-purchase Armalite AR-50 is accurate at distances more than one mile and fires “amazingly heavy” bullets, including explosive, incendiary and armor-piercing rounds that can easily be purchased online, Miller said.

“One man, with one of these guns and a bullet or two, can knock down a chemical tank and create chaos,” he said.

If the bill is signed, people who currently own .50 caliber weapons would be able to keep them, the lawmakers said, though they would have to register them.

There are currently 15 gun control bills awaiting the governor’s signature, each of which has already passed through both legislative houses. Another dozen have passed through either the Assembly or Senate. Christie has acted on only one, vetoing a bill that would bar the state pension fund from investing in companies that manufacture or sell assault firearms for civilian use.

Staff writer Seth Augentstein contributed to this report.

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