Chris Christie tore into a gun rights activist who questioned his Second Amendment record in an Iowa town hall event Saturday night, displaying the fiery and confrontational style the New Jersey governor is known for.
“I’m still waiting for one fact from you, one fact about me being anti-gun,” Christie scolded the man. “Give me one. One fact. Got one?”
The four-minute exchange at an Ankeny event was with a man who didn’t identify himself by name but told reporters there he is affiliated with the Iowa Gun Owners, a gun-rights group.
The man pressed Christie about a statewide gun owner identification program — “I vetoed that,” Christie shot back — and about what was apparently a 20-year-old Christie campaign ad in which he attacks an opponent for seeking to repeal an assault rifle ban in New Jersey.
“That ad was from 1995. Let me ask you this, if you haven’t changed your mind once in 20 years, if you haven’t changed your mind in 20 years on any issue, then I’ll tell you, you’re not a thinking, breathing, living human being,” Christie said.
Christie said presidents and governors are not “an emperor or a dictator.” He blamed the Democratic-led New Jersey state assembly for gun control laws that are already on the books and said he’s been a staunch supporter of gun rights.
“This is the kind of garbage that people point at who have an agenda,” Christie said.
“Work for the candidate who you want to work for, that’s fine with me,” he told the man. “Don’t come in front of this group of people and lie about my record which is what you did.”