New Jersey already boasts some of the nation’s smartest gun control laws, with strong restrictions of access by domestic abusers, limits on carry permits and bulk sales, and thorough background checks.

But we can do more with regard to the regulation and tracking of ammunition sales. It is a prominent gap in our laws, as shown in a 2016 report by the State Commission of Investigation. The SCI found that straw purchases of ammo were unchecked because gun IDs lacked photos. It found that sales records were almost always hand-written into log books. And it found that this was a problem for law enforcement, which should be able to consult an electronic database when it investigates a questionable ammo purchase, not thumb through a retailer’s sales registry.

One new bill fixes all that, and it is so salient that it passed the Assembly in a 51-18 bipartisan landslide, with even Republican leader Jon Bramnick giving it his imprimatur.

Yet as the Legislature sent an extraordinary package of gun control bills to the governor’s desk Thursday, the ammo reform measure was absent because Senate President Steve Sweeney refused to post it in his chamber.

You can draw your own conclusion about this. You have little choice, actually: Sweeney’s caucus, notably Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, is silent. We only know that Gov. Murphy called it the most crucial bill in the package, and its omission was conspicuous.

Sweeney explained it this way: “Reporting the purchase of ammunition is not going to stop anybody from buying it. And, if you understand anything about competitive shooting, these people buy a lot of ammunition because they shoot competitively. We had the Pro-Am shooting in Salem County the other day, and 15 hundred people from all over the country. . . .shooting. You know what I mean? Shooting clay.”

Let’s unpack that remarkable analysis.

First, reporting is already done — this bill just mandates that it be done electronically. “The only difference,” as Bramnick sees it, “is you hit a button to send it to the State Police instead of scribbling.”

Second, picture IDs effectively stop straw purchases of ammo, other jurisdictions have found.

Third, since when are clay shooters incapable of posing for a photo?

Sweeney’s odd homily still leaves us optimistic he can evolve, as he did with magazine limits after he became a target for shame by Newtown families and a gubernatorial wannabe.

But this is no time to tempt fate or compromise safety, even for reasons so persuasively outlined above by the Senate President.

The guy who was arrested last week with a .45 and 130 rounds of hollow-point bullets outside a Union County elementary school gave us yet another grim warning: Ammo needs regulation. It’s time for another Sweeney evolution.

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