New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is on his way out the door. For New Jersey gun rights supporters, that’s good news. Murphy has been a trainwreck in a lot of ways, but for gun rights in particular.

But unfortunately, that’s probably where the good news ends.

The Garden State isn’t likely to become a pro-gun mecca at any point in our lifetimes without something very strange happening there, which means the next government will probably also be anti-gun to some degree.

And one candidate has just gotten an anti-gun endorsement.

 New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill announced Friday that she has received the Gun Sense Candidate distinction from Moms Demand Action, a national gun control advocacy group.

If you think Democrat candidate for governor Mikie Sherrill isn’t coming for your guns if she wins the November election, think again.

Sherrill, a former Navy pilot and current congresswoman, shared the news on social media, writing, “I’m so proud to have earned @MomsDemand’s Gun Sense Candidate distinction. I’ve been working with Moms Demand Action since 2017 when I first ran for office, and I’m committed to continuing the fight to keep our kids safe from gun violence as governor.”

In other words, she’s always been a gun grabber and will continue grabbing for guns should she be elected governor.

Yeah, that’s not filling me with a great deal of joy, and I don’t even live in New Jersey.

Of course, I have friends who are stuck in that place, including our own John Petrolino, the poor bastard. 

Because of them and the millions of others who are impacted by anti-gun politics, I’d love to see the state change. I’d love to see someone come in and articulate why guns are good and why the Second Amendment matters in such a way that it resonates with the portion of the population that has long opposed gun rights and changes their minds.

I want that so badly for them.

However, based on what we’re seeing, that seems unlikely.

Sherrill isn’t a slam dunk for governor by any stretch, but she’s one of the top three candidates currently, and there’s still a long time to go for her to potentially build on that. Plus, nothing in the resume of the other top contenders gives me any reason to believe they’d be pro-gun, either.

Of course, that’s just the Democratic primary, and it wasn’t that long ago when New Jersey elected Republican Chris Christie as governor. Sure, he wasn’t sparklingly pro-gun, but it does suggest that anti-gun lawmakers don’t inherently have an automatic key to the governor’s mansion just because they win the primary.

That’s perhaps the only real hope here.

Well, that and the fact that every bit of anti-gun nonsense they try to pass in the Garden State will be challenged and at least some of it will have to be found unconstitutional. Considering what’s already on the books, there’s just nowhere for them to go where that’s not going to happen, and there will be new gun control laws passed by the legislature regardless of who wins the governor’s race.

The only question is whether there’s a likelihood of a veto rather than a lawsuit.