Advocates for gun rights are urging the New Mexico Supreme Court to block emergency orders by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham restricting people from carrying guns at public parks and playgrounds in the state’s largest metro area and address gun violence as a public health crisis.
The state Supreme Court was scheduled to hear oral arguments Monday in a lawsuit brought by Republican state legislators, the National Rifle Association and several residents of the Albuquerque area that include retired law enforcement officers, former federal agents, licensed firearms instructors and a gun-shop owner.
The state’s legal standoff is one of many — from an Illinois ban on high-powered rifles to location-based restrictions in New York — since a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year expanded gun rights and as leaders in politically liberal-leaning states explore new avenues for restrictions. A California law was set to take effect Jan. 1 banning firearms in most public places, but a legal challenge has held up implementation.
Lujan Grisham, a second-term Democrat, first invoked the orders in response to a spate of shootings that included the death of an 11-year-old boy outside a minor league baseball stadium.
I’m not a tinfoil hat or anything, but I feel like there’s been very little of this type of stuff for pretty much the entirety of Bidens term…
Am I wrong?
I want to say Illinois (?) has been slowly pushing more and more firearms legislation over the past few years?
But yeah. Part of it is because… this doesn’t stand a chance with the scotus. And Ginsburg died pretty much right before Biden’s admin began. And there is a very real threat that this makes it all the way to the scotus, gets shot down, and becomes precedent for why it must be legal to blow the brains out of any child so long as you scream “SECOND AMENDERMENT!”
But also? Shit just keeps getting worse and we are in for a truly hellish year. So any attempts to slow down the civilian deaths and take advantage of The People being increasingly terrified of right wing nutjobs shooting up any place that won’t put up a trump poster is important. Maybe more laws (for cops to ignore…) will result in fewer public shootings. Maybe this will be the motivation to actually do something about a fundamentally corrupt institution like the SCOTUS.
But for NM it makes a lot of sense. I spend a decent amount of time in Albuquerque on business and there was a week where I legit heard gunfire and just turned and drove in the opposite direction three different times. It was “we need to get Red Foreman to fuck someone up so we can make a dick shooting super soldier” bad. And that is what really pushed the “Fuck it, we need to do something” orders by Lujan.