The catastrophe of the mass murder in Parkland, Florida has elevated the issue of assault weapons to the forefront in the forthcoming November, 2018 elections.  There is now an overwhelming national consensus developing for the enactment of a national ban on assault weapons.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) will be very much in the forefront of opposition to such a measure.  Because of their controlling influence with both President Donald Trump and the Republican majority leadership in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, the enactment of such a ban will be impossible unless the Democrats win control of the House and Senate this November.  

Accordingly, we may well anticipate that the Democrats will in large part make the forthcoming Congressional elections a referendum on a national assault weapons ban.  This poses a special problem. for Republican Congressional nominees in New Jersey, a state where the very phrase “NRA” has a particularly politically malodorous connotation.  

This stigma in New Jersey attached to the NRA and anything associated with it has increased over the past three decades.  It began with the NRA’s war against former Governor Jim Florio and his enactment of the assault weapons ban.  

Remember the bumper stickers that said “Florio Free in ’93?”   Those bumper stickers were designed and produced at the behest of the NRA.  Due to Florio’s successful enactment of the assault weapons ban during the first two years of his administration, when he had Democratic majorities in both legislative houses, the NRA viewed him as an existential mortal threat, both with regard to Second Amendment and property rights concerns.  

The assault weapons ban was actually a popular measure with the electorate.  The NRA realized this, so they used the tax issue as a cover for their anti-gun control agenda.  Whenever you would see an anti-tax rally in those days, you could be sure that the NRA was playing a major, if not the sole role in organizing it.  The anti-tax hike organization, Hands Across New Jersey, was actually an NRA front.  

Indeed, the NRA was the warp and woof of the anti-Florio resistance throughout his term.  They were in the forefront of the 1991 GOP legislative campaigns, in which the Republicans won veto-proof majorities in both the State Assembly and Senate.   In exchange for NRA support, GOP leaders committed to the NRA during the 1991 campaign that they would repeal the Florio assault weapons ban.

The Republicans, however, were unable to deliver on this promise.  While both the GOP-controlled Assembly and Senate voted to repeal the assault weapons ban, the Republican Senators refused to vote to override Florio’s veto of the repeal.    

Meanwhile, Florio’s stance on the issue actually increased his popularity.  Because of his sales and income tax increases, he remained unpopular and would lose his 1993 reelection campaign to Christie Whitman.  His stance on assault weapons, however, enabled him to make the 1993 campaign competitive.  

Jim Florio’s courageous battle against assault weapons has become his enduring legacy.  Meanwhile, since he left office, the aversion to the NRA on the part of the New Jersey electorate continues to increase.  New Jersey is a pro-gun control state, and Bret Schundler’s anti-gun control positions and his perceived alliance with the NRA was a major factor in his 2001 general election landslide defeat.  Republican  

candidates for federal or state office in the Garden State will almost uniformly refuse to accept any campaign contributions from the NRA or any of their affiliated PACs.  

In 2018, however, the stigma of the NRA is once again front and center in New Jersey.  With Democratic candidates in New Jersey for the U.S. Senate and the House advocating a national assault weapons ban, Republican candidates who oppose such a ban will be labeled as”pro-NRA.”  The NRA stigma could imperil the reelection chances of GOP House members.

The NRA stigma will definitely present a problem for New Jersey Republican Congressional candidates among women voters, who by and large are much more pro-gun control than men voters. Trump misogyny is already a huge problem for GOP House and Senate candidates among women voters. When you combine Trump misogyny with the NRA stigma, you have a true level of anti-Republican political toxicity that will result in substantial antipathy among New Jersey women voters towards the Republican Party in this election.  

Indeed, if there is any political maxim that is indisputable in 2018, it is the NRA and New Jersey – NOT Perfect Together.

Alan J. Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as Executive Director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission under former New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman.