Lujan Grisham’s Health Emergency Order

Michelle Lujan Grisham is the current governor of New Mexico. She previously used health emergency executive orders to lock down the state for 3 years in a demonstrably useless response to Covid-19 and now, on September 8, 2023, has issued another order declaring gun violence as a health emergency. You can read the full text on the web, but let me tell you a little about it.

This order removes all carry rights, whether open or concealed, in any city or county in the State of New Mexico which meets statistical criteria. At the time the order was issued, only the City of Albuquerque and the County of Bernalillo met the specified criteria. For carrying legally, you can be fined $5000 and can have civil penalties (whatever they may be in this case) applied also. In the meantime, as we all know, those who are commiting the violence will continue to carry and use their firearms because they have never had consequences from their criminal behaviors thanks to the soft-on-criminal policies promoted by this very same governor.

After a reporter questioned whether Lujan Grisham was upholding her oath to the Constitution, she argued no Constitutional rights were fixed, including her oath. In her own words: “No constitutional right, in my view, including my oath, is intended to be absolute.” She has even admitted that her order will not be followed by the criminals, tacitly acknowledging that she is specifically targeting law-abiding citizens. She has also tried to justify herself by saying that her order affects the state open and concealed carry laws, which she claims she has the authority to do. Unfortunately for her, not only are our rights to carry enshrined in the U.S. Constitution but also in the NM State Constitution.

By issuing this unConstitutional order, Lujan Grisham has also put law enforcement in a difficult position—either they have to enforce an unConstitutional order or they have to defy the state governor. Compounding this problem, in 2021 she signed a bill eliminating “qualified immunity” which means that police officers can be sued for violating the Constitution of New Mexico.

Another point to consider is this: her Covid lockdown orders were all for short periods, i.e. 30 days, as is this order. However, keep in mind that the state was locked down for 3 years, because she kept renewing the order. Will she renew this one? That would be my guess!

About our only recourses right now on this one are lawsuits, impeachment, and civil disobedience. Please, find out who your state representatives are and contact them! We need to restrict the absolute power any governor may try to assume by disguising it under a health emergency and to impeach this governor for flagrant disregard of both the federal and state Constitutions and her oath of office.

UPDATE: After just over a week, Lujan Grisham has modified her order to only apply to public parks or playgrounds, or other public area provided for children to play in. Unfortunately for her, this does not change the unConstitutionality of the order. In her news conference, she claimed that the situation is urgent but she refused to call a special session. She has stated that she is going to try again to get the gun control laws passed that she was unable to force through during the last session. In addition, this new order, even if the criminals paid any attention, would have made no difference since the crimes she used as her excuse for this order did not happen in any such places.

She claims to have an anti-crime agenda, but her idea of that is to attack the law-abiding citizens. She is also trying to blame the NM Republican Party for the crime situation in this state, but they have introduced numerous bills that have been killed one after another by her and her party in the legislature.

New Mexico’s Red Flag Law

A red flag law is one that permits your firearms to be confiscated based on a statement from another person. You don’t need to have been convicted of a felony, committed to a mental institution or involved in domestic violence to be affected by this law. Also, you can have your firearms confiscated without due process of law because it only requires a statement from someone else.

In New Mexico, the Statue is NMSA Chapter 40, Article 17. This law allows any person to petition the court to have your guns confiscated. The petition must be made under oath, but as far as I can see, the only thing protecting you is the honesty of the petitioner. If you fail to relinquish your firearms, you are guilty of a misdemeanor and can be punished by imprisonment and fines. I see nothing in the statute about punishment for an inaccurate petition; maybe penalties for perjury might apply? Only if the perjurer is actually prosecuted!

This sounds like a reasonable idea, until you realize how open it is to abuse.

H.R. 1808 - Assault Weapons Ban of 2022

The so-called Assault Weapons Ban of 2022 was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on July 29, 2022. You can read the full text on the web, but let me give you a little information about it. It’s more than a little frightening.

It starts with the following sentence: “AN ACT To regulate assault weapons, to ensure that the right to keep and bear arms is not unlimited, and for other purposes.” Now that’s a scary thought. My immediate reaction was concern about both the limitations and those other purposes.

It then starts defining a completely new term: “semiautomatic assault weapon”. This uses a number of different criteria, such as a rifle that, essentially, looks scary and/or has a magazine with a capacity over 15 rounds (unless it uses only .22 caliber rimfire ammunition), a semiaumatic pistol that looks like an automatic weapon and/or has a magazine with a capacity over 15 rounds, and a whole list of specific firearms. For many, if not most, of us, we will probably find ourselves suddenly in possesion of an assault weapon when we weren’t before this.

It does mention a “grandfathered semiautomatic assault weapon” which I think might mean that, if you already have such a firearm, you will be allowed to keep it. For now.

After the definitions, and I haven’t even come close to listing all of them, it then starts prohibiting the sale of any of the newly-defined assault weapons and accessories, except to certain specified persons. It also includes a long list of the firearms that will be included in this ban, and a very short list of those that won’t.

Of course, of our New Mexico Representatives, both District 1 Representative Melanie Stansbury and District 3 Representative Teresa Fernandez voted for it. District 2 Representative Gabriel Vasquez was not in the House at the time of the vote, but would probably have voted for it as well. Because it has already passed the House, there isn’t much we can do about Stansbury, Vasquez and Fernandez except vote them out. If it is amended in the Senate however, it may go back to the House, so it is definitely worth contacting the representative for your district.

In the meantive, however, the bill has now gone to the Senate. Unfortunately, as we all know, both Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Lujan will also vote for it. Please, please, please write them, email them, call them with your objections. We all know that they are unlikely to listen, but all we can do is try—and, if they hear from enough of us, maybe we’ll get lucky after all.

For further discussion of this bill, you might want to watch:

• UPDATE: Assault Weapons Ban Bill HR1808 from Guns & Gadgets
• The Assault Weapons Ban Has Passed: What You Need To Know from Mrgunsngear Channel

Of course, there are many more options available also.