During the 2019 session of the New Mexico Legislature, anti-gun Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and state lawmakers who were elected with the support of New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg rammed legislation through which criminalized the private sale of firearms, over the strong objections of law-abiding citizens and law enforcement. Opponents warned that the measure would be intrusive, ineffective and unenforceable.
KRQE recently reported that in the year since that law went into effect on July 1, 2019, court records show no one has been charged with violating it. This should come as no surprise to those who fought against this legislation, warning that it would be ineffective and unenforceable. It certainly hasn’t stopped or even slowed crime in the Duke City.
Yet amidst the reporting on the state’s failed so-called universal background check law, and even with the red flag gun confiscation law recently having taken effect, anti-gun members of the Albuquerque City Council are calling for more gun control.
That’s right. This week, the Council’s Finance & Government Operations Committee advanced Resolution 20-68 by Councilmembers Isaac Benton and Diane Gibson, which calls on the New Mexico Legislature to rewrite Article II, Section 6 (the Right to Keep and Bear Arms provision) of the New Mexico Constitution, rip out the state firearms preemption clause and put that enormously-significant change to a popular vote. The full Council will consider the resolution in the coming weeks.
Preemption prevents a patchwork of different local firearms rules and regulations across the state. It helps ensure uniformity in gun laws wherever you live, work or travel, so that law-abiding citizens don’t unknowingly run afoul of confusing and conflicting local gun restrictions. If gun control advocates get their way, New Mexico could become one of only five states in the nation without this important protection. Cities like Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Las Cruces would be free to pass whatever type of gun control they wanted — gun bans, magazine limits, licensing and registration schemes, prohibitions on carrying firearms on your person or in your car — restrictions far beyond anything the New Mexico Legislature has already done or will do to your Second Amendment rights in the future.
Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Click here to follow NRA-ILA on Facebook.