Governor Chris Christie continued his pattern of granting clemency to victims of New Jersey’s draconian gun laws on Tuesday evening, Save Jerseyans, pardoning two U.S. military veterans convicted of crimes after innocently carrying their lawfully-owned personal firearms into the State New Jersey from their respective home states.
The first, Michael Golden of New Mexico, a Purple Heart recipient who was arrested in November 2013 for having a handgun in a Mahwah (Bergen County) hotel room.
James Pedersen, a corporal in the Marine Corps who helps disabled veterans, had been arrested in July 2014 in Runnemede (Camden County) for being in possession of a handgun following an altercation.
Both men had been sentenced to one year of probation.
Click here and here to read the Governor’s pardons.
New Jersey’s gun laws are among the strictest in America. This is the latest of Governor Christie’s gun-related acts of clemency; this Easter, he commuted the sentence of a former Marine from Virginia for similar offenses.
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