Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
There’ve been at least six different lawsuits filed in response to New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s order imposing a 30-day ban on open and concealed carry in the city of Albuquerque; the latest coming from the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, and the New Mexico Shooting Sports Association. In their complaint, the groups maintain that Grisham’s order is “in flagrant violation of Plaintiffs’ right to carry firearms in public for self-defense, a right that has been clearly established by the United States Supreme Court,” and “perversely target[s] the right to carry in the places where self-defense is most necessary.”
Meanwhile, the first court hearing for any of the complaints (a lawsuit brought by Gun Owners of America and an individual plaintiff) that was originally scheduled for later today has been postponed indefinitely by U.S. District Court Judge David Urias, a Biden appointee who took his place on the bench last January.
Four Boxes Diner’s Mark Smith says the delay doesn’t look good for the plaintiffs, though he acknowledges “we will need to let this play out a few days to see what happens,” adding that “New Mexico is politically a DEEP BLUE STATE so my working assumption is that the federal district court judges there have been handpicked by leftist politicians to ensure left-wing judicial results. Still, it will be hard for any judge to get around the clear holding of Bruen, and then to allow a governor to suspend a fundamental constitutional right ‘just because.'”
As Smith says, we do need to see how this plays out. If Urias was really trying to allow the clock to run out on Grisham’s order before issuing a ruling, I’m not sure why he would have scheduled the hearing on a TRO for this morning to begin with. This could truly be a staffing or a conflict with the judge’s calendar, but we’ll have a better idea once we see the new date for the hearing.
In the meantime, Grisham is doubling and tripling down, with one of the governor’s flacks telling the press that those who attended a rally in Old Town Albuquerque over the weekend, or at least those openly carrying in defiance of her order, will soon be receiving citations in the mail.
Remember, Grisham’s order was supposedly based on the high rate of violent crime in Albuquerque, but apparently her bigger concern was the large turnout of gun owners who were peacefully exercising their right to bear arms this past weekend. Instead of sending the state police to patrol the neighborhoods that have seen the most violence in recent days, the governor apparently directed them to surveil gun owners who had turned Old Town into the safest part of the city with their presence.
Grisham’s revealed herself to be a petty tyrant through her recent actions, and the bipartisan objections to her unconstitutional order are mounting. On Monday, a Democrat state senator publicly called for Grisham to rescind her order, and at least six House Democrats have now followed suit, telling the governor that they “concur with law enforcement leaders that these executive orders violate law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights and would require law enforcement officers to infringe upon those rights, which could expose officers, police agencies, and communities to civil litigation.” The six Democrats declared that the governor “does not have the authority to disregard both the New Mexico Constitution and the U.S. Constitution and to create law without action by or input from the new Mexico Legislature,” though they stopped short of indicating their support for impeaching Grisham over her unconstitutional acts.
Grisham’s unilateral attempt to suspend the right to bear arms in the state’s biggest city is actually becoming more unpopular with the state’s Democrats as time goes on, which is good to see. Now it’s time for the courts to step in and put a stop to her unconstitutional edict without further delay; allowing residents to once again exercise their fundamental right to armed self-defense in public and forcing the governor to put forth substantive policies to address violent crime without infringing on the civil liberties of lawful gun owners.