New Mexico Bans Second Amendment Gun Rights with Public Health Emergency
New Mexico Bans Second Amendment Gun Rights with Public Health Emergency
Armed protests of the COVID super powers; Washington, D.C. had the same ban on carry that passed a legislature and was struck down by federal court
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham abruptly banned carrying guns in public areas in and around Albuquerque by declaring on Friday a public health emergency that gives her “additional powers.” Citizens protested— armed— on Sunday.
This same total ban on carrying guns in public was law in Washington, D.C. for decades, but it was passed by the city council. Grisham said her executive action for a 30-day “suspension” of Second Amendment rights was legal because “no constitutional right...is intended to be absolute.”
The COVID era of executive powers in the name of a fake health emergency is alarming.
New Mexico’s gun-free zone
The governor’s order (here) bans all open and concealed carry of guns in Bernalillo County and prohibits guns on public property. The order even applies to legal permit holders. The civil violation comes with a $5,000 fine.
Grisham, a Democrat, said her decision was in response to three incidents of children being shot and killed and “mass shootings.”
She said at a press conference, “The purpose is to try to create a cooling-off period while we figure out how we can better address public safety and gun violence.”
She doesn’t even pretend that it will do anything to reduce gun violence.
A reporter asked her, “Do you really think criminals are going to hear this message and not carry a gun in Albuquerque— on the streets— for 30 days?"
“No,” Grisham replied, “I do think it's a pretty resounding message to everybody else in that community to report a crime, to tell us what's going on, to aid law enforcement.”
Opposition from all sides
The mayor of Albuquerque, the police chief, and the Bernalillo County District Attorney (a Democrat) said they won’t enforce the “unconstitutional” order. The state police are ordered to do it, though they reportedly did not give out fines to the protesters open carrying on Sunday.
Two gun-rights groups — Gun Owners of America and the National Association for Gun Rights — both filed lawsuits over the weekend to try to get the ban lifted by a court.
Even gun control activists said publicly they oppose it. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) tweeted, “There is no such thing as a state public health emergency exception to the U.S. Constitution.” Activist David Hogg tweeted the exact same thing, showing they were clearly coordinated.
COVID executive superpowers
The governor also said that it’s likely she will renew the gun ban after the 30-day period. It reminds me of the “15 days to slow the spread” that started months of lockdowns by the federal government.
Grisham said openly that she was going around the legislature.
“It's lawful in New Mexico to have firearms… It's not like I can create a new a new law or a standard. So what I can do is, when you violate a public health order, it's the lowest level of violation,” she said.
Two Republican legislators have called on Grisham to be impeached.
Washington’s same ban, pre-COVID
It seems everyone agrees that the New Mexico governor is wrong, but there was much less outrage when this was law in D.C. for decades. I pulled up the story I wrote in 2014 when U.S. District Court Judge Frederick Scullin, Jr. overturned the ban in Palmer v District of Columbia. He wrote:
There is no longer any basis on which this Court can conclude that the District of Columbia's total ban on the public carrying of ready-to-use handguns outside the home is constitutional under any level of scrutiny.
Attorney Alan Gura fought the case for five long years.
“We won!” Alan Gura, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs said in a phone interview. “I’m very pleased with the decision that the city can’t forbid the exercise of a fundamental constitutional right.”
Gura told me at the time that he expected the District to appeal this decision, but the city did not. Another case two years later forced the city to drop the part of the law that made people (like me) prove a need for a carry permit.