Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham tried to unilaterally suspend New Mexicans’ Second Amendment rights on Thursday, under the guise of a “public health emergency.”
The two-term governor handed down a 30-day suspension of concealed and open-carry in Bernalillo County, the state’s most populated region and home of Albuquerque. Grisham cited three shootings in July, August, and September to attempt to justify suspending citizens’ constitutional freedoms via an executive public health order.
“The time for standard measures has passed,” Grisham said in a press release. Apparently, “when New Mexicans are afraid to be in crowds, to take their kids to school, to leave a baseball game — when their very right to exist is threatened by the prospect of violence at every turn,” Grisham thinks it’s appropriate to suspend their right to defend themselves.
Grisham became an emblem of elite hypocrisy during coronavirus lockdowns — the last time she suspended constituent rights in the name of public health. In 2020, Grisham famously opened up a jewelry store so she could purchase jewelry while “non-essential” businesses were closed.
Amy Swearer, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the governor’s latest order suspending gun rights “is completely unconstitutional.”
“It’s also just logically nuts,” Swearer wrote. “Concealed carry permit holders aren’t the ones driving gun crime, and now you’re telling actual criminals that they have free reign because their victims can’t be armed.”
Even Democrats backed away from Grisham’s unilateral gun measure.
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