The Governor of New Mexico recently brought a barrage of gun control measures to the State Legislature.
Highlights include: an assault weapons ban, a two-week waiting period for the purchase of guns, a restriction on magazine capacities, and the ability for New Mexicans to sue gun manufacturers.
This move comes, partly in response to her failed attempt to control guns by fiat. In the second half of 2023, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a series of Executive Actions which removed the right of New Mexicans to conceal carry in the state. The diktat emphasized the need to keep parks secure, for the safety of children.
The actions never went anywhere; state gun enthusiast rallied, sheriffs in the state refused to enforce the overreach, and courts warned that they would rule them to be unconstitutional. So, she is trying the legislative route. With a legislature more blue than the represented body in New Mexico, the bills stand a chance to pass, until they have a chance to be adjudicated by courts of competent authority.
Her gun-banning declarations of “unknown duration”, and her actions while she had emergency powers during the covid response have revealed Lujan Grisham to be a wannabe dictator. The NM Governor has proven to be every bit as ambitious and leftist as her counterparts in California, New York, and Michigan, if not quite as smooth. Still, in going after guns, she shows a political shrewdness by attacking and making small progress on a controversial issue with evenly split opinions. Even if she takes a hand slapping from time to time, this is how incrementalism works.
One other aspect of the legislation is an attempt to raise the legal purchasing age of automatic firearms to 21 from 18. Firstly, it is unnecessary, as it is illegal to own automatic firearms in the United States. The discussion should logically end there. While logic isn’t a strong suit for the legislators in NM, this particular rule seems to be hypocritical and especially offensive to young men, usually poor or non-white. They are routinely issued these firearms and shipped to the far reaches of Earth, where they are made to fight for interests that are not their own. Consider. Many gun-grabbing elitists in this country believe in forever wars and they reserve the right to order young men where and under what circumstances they are allowed to possess this type of firearm. “You are only allowed to use this once we conscript your services” seems condescending to men who are used as pawns. Not every weapon of war is available to civilians, nor should they be, but there is something off putting about specifically telling a man of this age under what circumstances he can and cannot wield the same firearm, depending on the end use and who it benefits. In one instance they are assumed to have the wherewithal to appropriately utilize this weapon, but in any other circumstance it is assumed that they have no such faculty. The legislature has an attitude not just about the firearm, but toward these men which suggests “Break glass in case of war.”
Liberal talking heads are fond of going on news interviews and spouting off the canned line that “guns are the leading cause of death for children in this country.” Two problems with their comment.
The first problem with that convenient canard is that the studies that they point to in making this argument include children from ages 1-17.
Why is that important? Because it is roping in “children” old enough to engage in behavior which leads to firearm deaths. Under this definition, children taking part in gang life, robberies, car jackings, etc. who are going to be the inevitable and unfortunate victims of gun violence, will be counted. The 17-year-old with a violent lifestyle is looped in to color this hand-chosen study. On a single particularly violent weekend in Chicago, in mid-2023, 75 people were shot.
News watchers around the country know that the number of gunshot victims in the Windy City almost every weekend is in the double digits. Many of these are fatherless children left alone to engage in violent behavior. Many of these are innocent victims caught in the crossfire. None of them were mass shootings, or hate crimes like the media would have you believe. These are simply the predictable result of lawless cities where law enforcement is frowned upon, and where they believe that the biggest causes of crime are guns, climate change, and white supremacy.
The second problem with the gun violence study is that it is just incorrect. Abortion is the leading cause of death of children in this country. Approximately 950,000 babies per year, according to Wikipedia – no right-wing website. That converts to 1.8 abortions per minute, and NM is leading the way. This Governor, bringing up this issue, is rife with irony and cognitive dissonance. Other than the governor’s gun grabbing tendencies, the other issue that NM is well known for is being a mecca for abortion, including late term, no limit abortion.
Regarding this referenced study, a syllogism could be applied: Abortions kill children; Abortion takes the lives of children more than gun violence; therefore, this study is fallacious.
So, are New Mexicans duped? Can they see that Interstate 10 West from Texas is scarred with bilingual signs celebrating abortion in their state? The landscape of NM is disfigured by signs welcoming young women from states east of NM who arrive for off shore abortions. Since the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe, the number of abortions in NM has tripled.
Responsibility for this rests squarely on the shoulders of the governor and her abettors in the abortion loving legislature. If one googles “Abortions in NM”, what is found is a litany of websites both private and public designed to facilitate as many abortions as possible. It is an abortuary assembly line, both for young women in NM and aborto-tourists coming into the state. The State’s official list of abortion service clinics even directs women to a Satanic Temple which is benefitting from the abortion money grift.
If Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham wanted to save the lives of children in NM, she would not look to guns, she would look in the mirror.
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