To the Editor:

Princeton voters who care about good government and gun violence prevention have an opportunity to voice their concerns now by emailing their two current Assemblypersons in the 16th Legislative District: Jack Ciattarelli and Donna Simon. Both of these Assembly members are paid to serve in the Assembly until January 11, 2016. Consequently, they both have a key decision to make this Thursday at the State House when the General Assembly meets to vote to override Gov. Christie’s veto of a key gun violence prevention legislation, S.2360.

Readers should realize that the governor himself created a political problem that was not there, and simultaneously failed to solve a gun violence problem. Once he received the legislation, voted unanimously in both houses, the governor turned a piece of good government legislation into bad legislation by adding 27 pages of changes to New Jersey’s mental health laws. In letters to the legislature, New Jersey’s mental health associations have opposed the governor’s changes. The governor did not hold hearings or approach mental health care policy from a thoughtful or caring manner.

This blatant act of political obfuscation was designed simply to enhance his presidential campaign opportunities, as we hear daily from New Hampshire.

CeaseFire-NJ, the oldest and largest gun violence prevention group in the state has called on both Assembly members Ciatarelli and Simon to override the veto this Thursday. We strongly urge all readers who care about stopping gun violence to make a difference by calling or emailing their two Assembly members Ciatarelli and Simon immediately and ask them to vote yes to override the governor’s veto of S.2360. Their emails are: asmciattarelli@njleg.org and aswsimon@njleg.org. The phone numbers are: (908) 450-7064 and (908) 968-3304 respectively. Calls are needed now. The vote is this Thursday, December 3

Dolores A. Phillips, MPH

Legislative Director, CeaseFire-NJ, 

Coalition for Peace Action