Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo smiles during the 2023 State of the Schools address at Resorts World Las Vegas, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023.
Thursday, May 18, 2023 | 2 a.m.
View more of the Sun's opinion section
Semi-automatic rifles are displayed at Coastal Trading and Pawn, Monday, July 18, 2022, in Auburn, Maine. President Joe Biden and the Democrats have become increasingly emboldened in pushing for stronger gun control. The Democratic-led House passed legislation in July to revive a 1990s-era ban on certain semi-automatic guns, with Biden’s vocal support. And the president pushed the weapons ban nearly everywhere that he campaigned this year.
With a single stroke of a pen, Gov. Joe Lombardo completed his transformation from a once moderate law enforcement officer committed to protecting the public through reasonable gun regulations to a political opportunist committed to serving his own aspirations.
On Wednesday, Lombardo vetoed three commonsense restrictions on guns, putting Nevadans in the crosshairs of a deadly political gambit designed to win the support of the gun lobby and gun-rights extremists.
Republicans like Lombardo talk a big game about protecting our communities and holding criminals accountable but one of the bills vetoed by the governor was Senate Bill 171, which did nothing more than prohibit people convicted of a hate crime from owning, purchasing or possessing a firearm for 10 years following the conviction.
Another vetoed by Lombardo, Assembly Bill 354, would have helped protect polling places from threats of gun violence and cracked down on untraceable ghost guns. In 2018, Lombardo’s own colleagues from the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) warned that ghost guns “increase the risk that dangerous people, including felons, domestic abusers, and other people prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law, as well as terrorists and criminals around the world, will evade background check requirements and obtain a firearm.”
That bears repeating. Nevada’s governor just vetoed a bill regulating ghost guns, untraceable guns that the International Association of Chiefs of Police says increase the risks posed by terrorists, felons and other dangerous people. Couple that with his eagerness to keep guns in the hands of people convicted of hate crimes and those who would threaten polling places and you have a governor who has just chosen to support some of the worst people among us and protect people who would tear society apart.
The final bill, AB 355, sought to reduce mass shootings by raising the minimum age to own an assault weapon in Nevada to 21 except for members of the armed forces and law enforcement. In other words, it would have kept weapons of war out of the hands of young adults with no reason to own them and no training in safely using them.
All three bills are reasonable, limited and commonsense safety measures that respond directly to what law enforcement is telling us are threats to the safety of our schools, streets and communities. Clearly, the opportunity to score political points with the far-right was more important to Lombardo than the safety of Nevadans.
Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised. This is the same governor who told bald-faced lies to the family members of victims of the Oct. 1 massacre. He told them he was grieving with them and would support reasonable gun control measures, only to turn his back once the polling numbers showed that his empathy harmed his electability among extremists.
Assembly Majority Floor Leader Sandra Jauregui called him out for as much in a statement Wednesday, saying: “I desperately wish the governor would put the safety of Nevadans over partisan politics. After his time consoling the families of the 1 October massacre, I expected the governor to have the basic empathy to realize his responsibility to prevent future mass shootings and gun violence tragedies. Too many Nevadans have lost their lives to gun violence and even more have been left as survivors, wondering when it will happen again.”
Lombardo should be ashamed of himself. He had a rare opportunity to put politics aside and demonstrate bipartisan compromise and leadership in keeping our communities safe. Instead, after dedicating much of his professional life to protecting Clark County’s residents from criminals, Lombardo sided with terrorists, felons, school shooters, domestic abusers, convicted hate criminals and other violent extremists.
Moreover, Nevadans should be embarrassed. Instead of Nevada being an example for the nation of how Republicans and Democrats can work together to protect our communities and keep our kids safe, the state is instead the poster child for gun manufacturers looking to buy the support of feckless GOP lawmakers.
While we pray that the violence in our streets comes to a swift end, we implore Nevadans to remember that every shooting from today onward that involves an assault weapon wielded by an 18-to-20-year-old, a ghost gun or a perpetrator previously convicted of a hate crime, might have been prevented if Lombardo had chosen his duty over his pursuit of power.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you, Governor, that nothing happens from this day forward that will put blood on your hands.
