Credit: (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File)

WASHINGTON — Tom Kean presents himself as a moderate Republican, willing to buck his party for the interests of New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, home to about 774,000 people.

Kean has largely voted with Republicans in his first House term. Yet a vote on gun control stands out.

Kean was one of two Republicans in the chamber to vote against a measure (H.J.Res.44) that would have blocked a federal rule to regulate the use of “stabilizing braces” — mechanical extensions that can be attached to pistols to make those weapons more dangerous.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a former FBI agent who represents a district in Pennsylvania across the Delaware River from Kean’s district, was the other Republican.

Stabilizing braces have been used in several recent mass shootings, including the March 2023 shooting at a school in Nashville, Tennesse, at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Spring, Colorado, in 2022 that killed five people and injured 19 more, and in Dayton, Ohio, in 2019.

New Jersey has some of the strongest gun-safety laws of any state and significantly fewer deaths from firearms than the majority of U.S. states, though the State Commission of Investigation, a watchdog agency, last month urged state lawmakers to do more to limit gun deaths.

In particular, the agency pressed the Legislature to carry out measures to ban the equipment used to make 3-D printed weapons, also known as “ghost guns.”

New Jersey’s two other Republicans, Reps. Jeff Van Drew (R-2nd) and Chris Smith (R-4th), voted for the legislation. Van Drew also co-sponsored it. All the state’s House Democrats voted against it except for Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-5th), who did not vote.

The advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety ranks New Jersey 7th among all U.S. states for gun safety.

Five people per 100,000 and 468 overall in New Jersey were killed in 2022, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That average death rate is fourth-safest of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the CDC figures show, and well below the national average of 14.5 deaths per 100,000.

In 2022, the latest year of data the CDC has available, 48,204 people in America died from firearms.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a unit of the Justice Department, finalized the rule in question in January 2023. Still in force, it tightens regulations on gun accessories called stabilizing braces, which allow the holder to alter a pistol into a weapon that can be fired from the shoulder, making it more accurate but still concealable.

Republicans in Washington and pro-gun groups like the National Rifle Association pushed back on the ATF rule, saying it was unfair to disabled military veterans.

Alex Bosco, a military veteran credited with inventing the first stabilizing brace, has said he did so after watching a disabled veteran firing downrange in a dangerous manner.

In June 2023, the House voted 219-210 to pass the resolution to block the ATF rule.

Before that month ended, and in the face of a veto threat from President Joe Biden, the Senate voted the resolution down, 49-50, with both Sen. Cory Booker and former Sen. Bob Menendez voting against it.

Under the rule, people with guns that include a stabilizing brace are bound to register that weapon with the U.S. government.

Kean was not serving in Washington last Congress, when lawmakers passed and Biden signed, in 2022, the first bipartisan legislation on gun control in years.

That law, among other steps, closed what is known as the “boyfriend loophole” to thwart people convicted of domestic abuse from gun ownership. Previously, the law had only applied to people married to or living with the victim, or if they had a child with the victim.

Last Congress, New Jersey’s delegation split along party lines on the bill that became that law, with all Democrats voting for it and Van Drew and Smith voting against.

Andrew Clyde, a Republican from Georgia, is the lead sponsor on the since-fizzled-out bill.

“It represents a dangerous government overreach by the Biden administration,” Clyde said during floor debate on the resolution. “Congress maintains sole legislative authority, not government agencies and not the executive branch. Congress writes laws, not unelected, anti-gun bureaucrats at the ATF.”

While Congress writes federal law, agencies enforce them.

Clyde owns two gun stores in Georgia, according to his financial disclosures. He can often be seen on Capitol Hill wearing an assault rifle-themed tie tack.

“The regulation the administration has adopted is perfectly constitutional, so if you want more bloodshed, just stand for that,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, after Clyde’s remarks.