Gov. Joe Lombardo (R-NV) vetoed three bills seeking to tighten Nevada’s laws on gun ownership and purchasing.
Lombardo said in a release on Wednesday that the legislation was in “direct conflict” with constitutional protections.
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“I will not support legislation that infringes on the constitutional rights of Nevadans,” Lombardo said. “As I stated in my letters, much of the legislation I vetoed today is in direct conflict with legal precedent and established constitutional protections. Therefore, I cannot support them.”
Senate Bill 171 would have prohibited the purchasing or ownership of a firearm by a person convicted of committing or attempting to commit a hate crime.
The bill says it makes efforts aimed at “decreasing gun violence among those convicted of hate crimes,” but the “limited nexus between certain misdemeanor charges and gun violence makes it untenable to pass a law that immediately puts the defendant’s Second Amendment rights in jeopardy,” Lombardo wrote in a letter to state Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, a Democrat, explaining his veto.
The second bill, Assembly Bill 354, would prohibit under certain circumstances the possession of a firearm within a certain distance of an election site and defined terms relating to manufacturing and gun materials.
Lombardo wrote to Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager, also a Democrat, explaining his veto, saying there is “no notable history” of gun violence at election facilities in Nevada.
Assembly Bill 355, the third bill, would prohibit people who are under 21 years old from possessing certain firearms. Lombardo cited an appeals court ruling last year that found California’s ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons was unconstitutional and said that, if the bill became law, it is “unlikely it would pass constitutional muster.”
Several states across the country have sought to either protect or restrict gun laws.
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Last week, a federal judge ruled that the U.S. government’s ban on 18- to 20-year-olds buying handguns violates the Second Amendment.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled it will not halt Illinois’s gun law blocking the sale of certain semi-automatic guns and large-capacity magazines for now, as the matter is slated for arguments in the appeals court.
