Nevada GOP Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed three Democrat-backed pieces of legislation on Wednesday that would have set additional restrictions on gun ownership and purchasing in the state, The Hill reported Thursday.
Lombardo wrote in a release that he refuses to support legislation "that infringes on the constitutional rights of Nevadans."
"Much of the legislation I vetoed today is in direct conflict with legal precedent and established constitutional protections," he added. "Therefore, I cannot support them."
According to the Nevada Independent, a nonpartisan, nonprofit website, Lombardo's veto of the three bills follows a pledge the governor made on his campaign website to reject any legislation that would take away "the right to build a firearm for personal use."
One bill — SB171 — would have prohibited a person from purchasing, owning, or possessing a firearm if they had been convicted of committing, or attempting to commit, a violent hate crime within the past 10 years.
A second piece of legislation — AB354 — would have criminalized most people for carrying a firearm within 100 feet of an election site.
The third bill — AB355 — would have prevented anyone under the age of 21, outside of being law enforcement or a member of the military, from possessing any semiautomatic shotgun or semiautomatic centerfire rifle.
Lombardo stated in his letter to Steve Yeager, speaker of the Nevada Assembly, that he found AB354 to be "commendable" for aiming "to increase public confidence in the safety in and around our election process." However, he also found the bill's scope to be "too broad and there is no notable history of gun violence at election facilities in Nevada."
"It is untenable to prohibit lawabiding citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights in these areas," Lombardo wrote.
The Hill also reported that Lombardo stated that AB355 had contradicted a 2022 ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which struck down as unconstitutional a California law that banned the sale of semiautomatic rifles to adults under 21.
With regards to the hate crimes bill, Lombardo wrote to Nicole Cannizzaro, majority leader of the Nevada State Senate, and took exception with the legislation's definition to include offenses "that are prosecuted as gross misdemeanors." The governor stated that it would be "untenable" to pass SB171 as currently written, for it "immediately puts the defendant's Second Amendment rights in jeopardy."
All three bills passed across party lines in the state Legislature, The Hill reported, and Democrats called on the governor to sign the bills into law.
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