Judge Blocks New Mexico Ban On Carrying Guns; The New Mexico Governor’s ‘Suspension’ of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Is Both Illegal and Stupid

Judge Blocks New Mexico Ban on Carrying Guns:

Restraining order halts governor’s suspension of open and concealed carrying of firearms to curb gun violence

A federal judge in New Mexico on Wednesday blocked an emergency order by the state’s Democratic governor that temporarily banned legal gun owners from carrying firearms in most public places around Albuquerque.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham ignited controversy statewide Friday when she invoked her emergency public-health powers with an edict barring people from carrying firearms, either openly or concealed, in public areas across the state’s most populous county for at least 30 days with very limited exceptions.

At a hearing Wednesday, U.S. District Judge David Urias said he had doubts about the constitutionality of the governor’s order and suspended its enforcement for at least two weeks. “You have a hard road here,” he told a lawyer for the governor. The judge, an appointee of President Biden, said the ban on carrying weapons was broader and stricter than permitting restrictions in New York that the Supreme Court struck down last year.

The governor said she was responding to a scourge of gun violence in New Mexico, including a recent drive-by shooting that killed a 5-year-old girl and a shooting near a minor-league baseball stadium that left an 11-year-old boy dead. In defense of her order, Lujan Grisham said no constitutional right is intended to be absolute.

Gun-rights groups responded with lawsuits that assailed the governor’s order as an incursion on the constitutional right to bear arms under the Second Amendment, particularly after last year’s Supreme Court ruling buttressing the right of law-abiding citizens to publicly carry firearms for self-defense.

New Mexico generally allows legal gun owners to carry weapons openly and allows residents who have completed a gun-safety training course to apply for a permit to carry concealed weapons. —>READ MORE HERE

The New Mexico Governor’s ‘Suspension’ of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Is Both Illegal and Stupid:

The governor of New Mexico has decided to “suspend” the right to bear arms for 30 days:

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said she will enact a temporary ban on carrying firearms in any public space across Bernalillo County. The governor made the announcement during a news conference Friday.

Sitting alongside the Albuquerque Police Chief and Bernalillo County Sheriff. The governor says part of this new order is a 30-day suspension on open and concealed carry on public property for anyone other than law enforcement or licensed security. “I’ve warned everyone that we expect a direct challenge, probably as you’re writing this we’re getting a challenge, and that’s the way it should work. But I have to take a tough direct stand, or basically I’m just ignoring the fact that we lost an 11-year-old, another child,” said Gov. Lujan Grisham.

This is not how the law works in America. As far as I can see, there’s nothing in any New Mexico statute that gives the governor the power to declare an emergency suspending the right to carry, and there’s certainly nothing in the U.S. Constitution that does. If our elected officials were allowed to shelve our unalienable rights every time they believed that those rights were being abused by outlaws, then they wouldn’t be unalienable rights; they’d be privileges. Lujan Grisham knows this — which is why she has said not only that she has “warned everyone that we expect a direct challenge,” but that the arrival of such a challenge is “the way it should work.” Those are the words of a person who knows she is breaking the law but has resolved to do it anyway. “I have to take a tough direct stand,” she insists, giving the game away. Actually, she does not. She has to uphold her oath of office. —>READ MORE HERE

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