Well, Christie Cream is finally back in New Jersey and apparently he heard on the campaign trail that his state has some of the strictest (and most ridiculous) gun-control laws in the country.

Last June, after the senseless stabbing death of New Jersey resident Carol Bowne as she waited for a firearm permit for self defense, the portly Governor said Democrats in the state legislature were “going to have to answer” for the Garden State’s laws.

“I’m dealing with a Democratic legislature — that’s what New Jersey’s given me,” said Christie in 2015. “They have a very, very different view of the Second Amendment than I do. But they’re going to have to answer for these things. There was, apparently, a protest this weekend, in front of the Senate President’s home, for folks regarding the Carol Bowne situation.”

So what did he do about it? He ditched the state to hit the campaign trail on his unsuccessful presidential bid. 

Now that he’s back, it seems he may have heard Americans’ complaints about New Jersey’s draconian gun laws, but are his efforts too little, too late? Over three months after the New Jersey Firearm Purchase and Permitting Study Commission he tasked with issuing recommendations completed their findings, the governor finally rolled around to releasing them on Friday.

“I have seen far too many instances in my time as governor of otherwise lawful gun owners facing severe criminal penalties when they have no intent to violate the law in the routine transport of their lawfully owned firearms,” Christie said this week.

Christie also recalled the Bowne case as a prime example “of a permitting system that had failed and needed to be re-examined and fixed.”

The guidelines issued by acting Attorney General Robert Lougy, appointed by Christie last June to review the firearms permitting process, bluntly directs authorities to “simply follow the law by processing permit applications in a timely fashion,” according to the release.

Additional revisions include:

• Applicants ability to legally cite a “serious threat” as justifiable reason to carry a weapon
• Where an individual may possess an unloaded, securely stored firearm
• Permits are no longer necessary for travel between home and business, or to shooting ranges and hunting grounds

While this may be fine and dandy for now, it’s ridiculous that it took almost a year for Christie to make these simple changes. The Governor continues to blindly wander through his roll without acknowledging or addressing his constituents’ angst. Reacting to his excessive time out of state, some residents of New Jersey called for Christie to step down as Governor, starting a petition called Step Down Chris, Make New Jersey Great Again.