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“Shall Not Be Infringed!” If New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham wanted attention, she certainly got it in spades with her flagrantly UNConstitutional move to ban law-abiding citizens from open or concealed carry for the next 30 days.
As I noted yesterday, this is supposedly about public health. According to Grisham, in order to keep the public healthy and safe, taking guns away from ordinary citizens is the answer. You can read the entire public health order here.
Nowhere in that order is there anything about enforcing laws to keep criminals off the streets. Nope, this is entirely about taking away all of law-abiding citizens Constitutional rights, one “public health” grab at a time.
Keep in mind, if you read the order – and you should – it also notes that gun store and firing range owners will be subject to monthly inspections. MONTHLY. That means she intends to keep this order in place longer than 30 days but is hoping no one will notice.
Well, a helluva lot of people have noticed. And now a lawsuit (first of many I’d say) has been filed.
A gun rights group sued New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) and other state officials on Saturday over an emergency order banning firearms from being carried in public in Albuquerque.
The National Association for Gun Rights, alongside Albuquerque resident Foster Haines, filed suit just one day after Grisham announced the public health order temporarily suspending concealed and open carry laws in the city.
Again, this order that Grisham imposed doesn’t do a damned thing to stop criminals.
When we're afraid to be in crowds, to take our kids to school – when our very right to exist is threatened by the prospect of violence at every turn – something is wrong. I’m not going to stop fighting for public safety until everyone is safe. Period. https://t.co/pcWqIjZDLH
— Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (@GovMLG) September 9, 2023
The cases she cites regarding kids being shot are disingenuous at best and extreme gaslighting at its worst. It wasn’t law-abiding citizens who shot those children, it was criminals. Yet nowhere in her speeches and stance on this since Friday does she talk about that. No, she instead thinks that she can use public health as a way to get around her sworn oath to uphold both the New Mexico and United States Constitutions.
Via Eugene Volokh at Reason:
No law shall abridge the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms for security and
defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes, but nothing herein shall be held to permit the carrying of concealed weapons.City of Las Vegas v. Moberg (1971) interpreted the 1912 constitutional right to bear arms provision (“The people have the right to bear arms for their security and defense, but nothing herein shall be held to permit the carrying of concealed weapons”) as indeed invalidating laws that ban both open and concealed carry of guns. The argument in this federal case doesn’t rely on the state constitutional provision (likely because federal courts generally can’t issue injunctions against state governments violating state law), but I thought it worth noting, since the New Mexico Governor is of course obligated to comply with the state constitution.
OOPS. She might’ve bitten off more than she can chew. Yet it sure sounds like she’s digging in her heels on this. State police, in this order, are evidently supposed to arrest citizens who don’t comply. And those citizens could face fines up to $5,000.
That’s great. Arrest law-abiding citizens who are exercising their Constitutional rights, all while the criminals continue their rampage.
Lujan Grisham said state police would be responsible for enforcing what amount to civil violations. Albuquerque police Chief Harold Medina said he won’t enforce it, and Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen said he’s uneasy about it because it raises too many questions about constitutional rights.
Well yes Sheriff, this move goes directly AGAINST their Constitutional rights! You should be totally on board with NOT enforcing this instead of waffling around about it.
Former Governor Susana Martinez chimed in.
We cannot have political grandstanding, reckless and unconstitutional “emergency health orders” being issued that do nothing to criminals, but instead take aim at law abiding citizens.
— Susana Martinez (@Gov_Martinez) September 9, 2023
Keep in mind, Grisham was an outright zealot when it came to the Covid lockdowns. Evidently all that power went to her head despite getting vaccinated/boosted and having Covid TWICE, and so she’s trying this gun grab gambit now.
….Stripping gun rights of law-abiding citizens does not decrease crime rates. In fact, it leaves law abiding citizens more vulnerable and helpless against those who commit violent crimes.
— Susana Martinez (@Gov_Martinez) September 9, 2023
That is quite true. Not only that, but even with thirty day limit (that she’ll try to move the goal posts on), there’s other issues about this infringement upon citizen’s Second Amendment rights.
The order allows for an expansion to other cities that meet the threshold for violent crime if 1,000 or more violent crimes per 100,000 residents have occurred per year since 2021. It also sets a threshold of 90 firearms-related emergency room visits per 100,000 residents have occurred between July 2022 and June of this year.
So, the ability to expand this unlawful order is already in place.
The thing is, no matter what experts like Jacob Charles say, this protects the criminals.
“They can’t assess whether or not this is going to reduce gun violence. They can’t assess whether or not there are other alternatives that government could have done,” Charles said. He later added, “What it means is that contemporary costs and benefits aren’t part of the analysis.”
You know what WILL reduce gun violence?? PROSECUTING criminals and throwing them in jail.
https://twitter.com/Lord4NM/status/1700586411852734578
Since New Mexico doesn’t allow for recalls, it looks like lawsuits and impeachment are the only options.
Feature Photo Credit: handgun and Constitution via iStock, cropped and modified
Scott says: Well, even though she’s lying about the intended duration of this order (she is a democrat after all), at least she’s being honest about what she wants to do, and her complete disdain for the Constitution, as well as the fact that she flat out lied when she swore her oath, and doesn’t care who knows it..
Liz says: Murder rate in Albuquerque is TEN TIMES the murder rate in El Paso, Texas.
And El Paso is a border town (you can see Juarez, right over the fence), and has more people.
Scott says: But as in all other cases, I’m sure that you can break down the perpetrators into a VERY small and well defined portion of the community. It’s not a problem that lacks solutions, it’s a problem that lacks the will to accurately define it, and appropriately deal with it.
Hate_me says: Organized crime generally tries to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to supply corridors.
In cities of roughly-comparable size (El Paso has a city population about 100,000 greater than does Albuquerque, but its metropolitan population is about 100,000 less), it’s reasonable that the one in which cartels have a vested interest would see considerably less violent crime.
Liz says: Albuquerque is probably the biggest “supply hub” in the entire US (as it feeds the drug supply to the rest of the nation). El Paso has been the safest big city in the US for decades (they might not be now, but held that title a long, long while).
Hate_me says: Hubs are fundamentally different than corridors, in this respect.
therealguyfaux says: What’s the limiting principle to how many times she can try to pull this cheap stunt? What’s to stop her from just issuing one every 30 days? What’s to stop her from saying, e.g, drinking Coca Cola is a health emergency (like another gun grabber Mike Bloomberg would have liked to do).
On another site, some commenter suggested that since she’s term-limited, she need not worry about re-election, and this allows Dems to be against her and thus bamboozle some folks in NM (and elsewhere) into thinking there are Dems who do respect the 2A. In other words, she’s doing this to make other Dems look good.
Do not imagine that a Second Amendment victory in court will settle this. Remember what Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish said to Ned Stark:
“When the Queen proclaims one King, and the Hand proclaims another, whose ‘peace’ do the Goldcloaks protect? Who do they follow?…The man who pays them!”
Political power is ultimately the power to ENFORCE. Whose will are New Mexico’s ‘Goldcloaks’ more likely to enforce? Who pays their salaries? Would it be wise to bet against the enforcement of that person’s will?
And so it will be throughout these United States.
[…] Musings: 9/11, The “Why Not” Grand Jury, Misogyny, and AI and Leviathan Victory Girls: Lawsuit Filed Against New Mexico Governor’s Gun Ban, also, September 11 – Two More Remains Finally Identified Volokh Conspiracy: Federal Government […]
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