By David A. Lombardo
If you listen carefully, you can hear the anti-Second Amendment cabal cheering from sea to shining sea. What are they cheering about? New Mexico’s Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has suspended the Second Amendment in New Mexico.
You read that correctly, suspended the Second Amendment in New Mexico.
While liberals nationwide are petulantly stomping their collective foot about how something must be done about all the gun violence, Lujan Grisham is actually doing something, something truly farm league and in violation of the United States Constitution.
On September 7th, Lujan Grisham signed an executive order in which she declared a state of public health emergency due to gun violence. The order, which expires on October 6th, uses a 45 pecent rise in gun deaths from 2009 to 2018 and an increase in mass shootings as the justification. The executive order specifies the suspension of concealed and open carrying of firearms in Albuquerque and surrounding Bernalillo County.
Lujan Grisham could be facing serious criminal prosecution under the United States Code. Section 242, Title 18 states it is a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. The law includes federal, state, and local officials within their lawful authority.
That is exactly what the Governor is doing by prohibiting lawful citizens from carrying a firearm for personal protection. It is all the more egregious because it disarms citizens from carrying a firearm for personal during an unprecedented period of gun violence against law abiding citizens.
The United States Supreme Court ruled it is a constitutional right as ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago. It is not necessary that the crime be motivated by animus toward the race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin of the victim. Offenses against the Constitution are punishable by a range of imprisonment up to a life term, or the death penalty, depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and the resulting injury, if any.
The most interesting aspect of the suspension is the bipartisan bellwether support against it. The ink on the bill was barely dry when the first salvo of dissent was fired from both sides of the aisle. You know your anti-Second Amendment act is in trouble when rabid anti-Second Amendment self-appointed spokesman and March for Our Lives co-founder David Hogg weighs in against you. Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, and darling of the anti-Second Amendment contingent, sent out the following post on X,
“I support gun safety, but there is no such thing as a state public health emergency exception to the U.S. Constitution.”
The fact Hogg plagiarized it from a tweet earlier that day from Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu of California, only makes it all the more compelling.
New Mexico’s Attorney General Raúl Torrez, a registered Democrat, went on record that he will not defend the governor’s public health order on firearms, furthering a divide between the state’s top-ranked elected Democrats.
Six federal lawsuits have already been filed challenging the suspension and there are more on the way. U.S. District Judge David Urias is set to hear arguments on Wednesday and rule on issuing a temporary restraining order.
David Lombardo is an Army Vietnam veteran with over fifty years of firearm experience including 20 years as a part time county deputy; firearm instructor to over 8,000 students; extensive experience as a chief range safety officer; former president of one of the country’s largest shooting clubs; and a print, television and radio journalist for over 20 years. Currently, he is an expert witness in firearm related civil and criminal litigation, serves on the Board of Directors of the Illinois State Rifle Association and writes on the subject of the safe use of firearms and deadly force.
