“Sensible gun controls” is the phrase at the center of the New York Times’s editorial this morning in respect of Governor Christie’s evolution on the Second Amendment. No sooner did the New Jersey Republican, a former prosecutor, start running for president than he “started running away from his own record on sensible gun controls.” So says the Times. What in the name of Wyatt Earp is this all about?

One thing it’s about is democracy. Mr. Christie was born and raised at New Jersey. How was he supposed to know about the Second Amendment? It doesn’t apply in the Garden State, where a law-abiding adult is required to have a permit to pack a pistol. The government may, but need not, issue one. That means that if George Washington tried to trespass New Jersey today, he’d be arrested before he could cross the Delaware.

That’s because applicants for a permit to carry are required to “specify in detail the urgent necessity for self-protection, as evidenced by specific threats or previous attacks which demonstrate a special danger to the applicant’s life that cannot be avoided by means other than by issuance of a permit to carry a handgun.” That makes New Jersey a “no issue state,” unless, Wikipedia actually says, one is a retired policeman or has “political connections.”

Is that reasonable? Imagine Mr. Christie’s surprise upon discovering in the course of his campaign for president that almost everywhere he went outside New Jersey, it was perfectly legal for law-abiding citizens to carry a pistol. It turns out that most states bow to the Second Amendment, which says that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It doesn’t say anything about political connections.

The Times quotes Mr. Christie as attributing his evolution on gun control to his having “grown up a bit.” Good for him. Democracy will do that to a man, so long as he’s not an editorial writer of the Times. It wants Mr. Christie to sign a law that would require retailers to stock “smart” guns. Such weapons can be fired only by an authorized user, which the gun figures out using the latest technological gadgetry.

We have no objection to retailers selling smart guns if they can find buyers. But there’s a back story. In 2002, the geniuses in Trenton enacted a law that providing that three years after “smart” guns become available, only smart guns will be permitted to be sold at New Jersey. The law is known as the Childproof Handgun Law. The result is that no one will make smart guns available, lest they trigger a curb on other guns. Even a child could have foreseen that.

The measure the Times wants Mr. Christie to sign would replace one unconstitutional statute with another one, requiring dealers in New Jersey to stock smart guns alongside dumb ones. Too bad we couldn’t have a law requiring legislatures to stock politicians who would let law abiding people manage their own lives. It could be called the Chris Christie Grown Up Politicians Act of 2016. It would be a sensible start for the campaign trail.