People of New Mexico: Your governor is not coming to save you!
I donât know much about Albuquerque. I pass through there only occasionally on my way to other places. I can tell you that Albuquerque is the only place Iâve ever slept wanting a gun underneath my pillow.**
Having only a small number of friends in its remote towns, and traveling through the state only occasionally, New Mexico isnât really on my radar. So I was surprised when a Hillary Clinton clone popped up as its governor. And Hillary Lite popped up in the worst way possible: as a tyrannist.
In little more than half a year we will observe the 250th anniversary of American resistance to British disarmament. That resistance sparked the Revolutionary War. And one product of that conflict was our Declaration of Independence. Then with victory in Yorktown, the colonists didnât just stow their weapons of war above their mantles again. They set about drafting a government more aligned with the will of a free people.
Fast forward a few years and the fledgling United Sates ratified its Constitution, a document that had as its living, beating heart a Bill of Rights.Â
You donât need to be much of a scholar to read through the âlong train of abusesâ in our Declaration and the articles in our Bill of Rights to see the corollary. You need to be only slightly betterâbut more patientâto read through John Lockeâs works and see his influence. At the core of our Bill of Rights is the oft-cited inalienable rights of âlife, liberty and property.â
The governor of New Mexico clearly scores low in both scholarship and patience. Oh, and history. Her recent actions suggest that she has never read a Revolutionary War history. Or that she would recognize our Constitution were it laid in front of her. She might, however, like her pantsuit clad predecessor, score remarkably high on being a self-serving politician. Ms. Practical Pumps for all practical purposes left a pro-abortion rallyâwhere she declared that âthe government can keep its hands off my bodyââto go to her desk and, in an authoritarian stroke of her pen, annul New Mexico citizenâs Second Amendment rights.
This is cognitive dissonance at a level that suggests a clinical issue. But letâs ignore that and see where this gets weird.
First let me say that a cruise through the documents and history noted above clarifies the ham-fisted wording of our Second Amendment. In my own weak attempt at originalism, I will suggest that this is why readings of the second amendment limiting weaponry to government-run militias fall short. This is why readings limiting weaponry to 18th century firearms fall short. This is why readings that never allow guns outside home defense fall short.
You, my friend, live in a country that recognizes your inalienable right to defend your life, liberty and property. And since your life goes with you everywhere you go, that right to self defense applies everywhere.
This is heady stuff. But one wag noted that âFools rush in where wise men fear to tread.â In the same vein Edward Abbey noted, âTo the intelligent man or woman life appears infinitely mysterious, but the stupid have an answer for every question.â So here we have Governor Grisham tripping headlong into a place no one before her would go, providing answers that are profoundly stupid.
So whatâs the story? Hillary Lite has declared a âpublic health emergencyâ for, basically, Bernalillo County. The emergency is directed specifically at gun related deaths. The rate of death by gunshot is high in New Mexico. The state ranks 36th in population, but 13th in gun related death. Those are not good numbers. Iâd agree that they indicate a few problems. One problem relates to the fact that New Mexico is a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. As Don Henley noted, drug dealers âalways carry weapons âcause they always carry cash.â New Mexico, at least in its urban areas, also has higher per capita mental health issues.
But here is where it gets weird. The governor doesnât see New Mexico as having a drug violence problem. And despite the fact that half of all gunshot deaths in her state are suicides she doesnât see a mental health crisis. She sees a âgun violenceâ problem.
Why is violence, and indeed a violent society, okay so long as itâs not âgun violence.â Rape is okay? There are 325,000 sexual assaults in the USA each year. This is an order of magnitude more than the number of incidents involving being shot by another human. Most of you know someone who has been raped. Far, far fewer of you know anyone shot by another human. Yet this as a societal problem is rarely termed sexual violence. How about violence involving alcohol? The USA sees 1.4 million acts of violence involving alcohol annually. Yet we never hear the phrase alcohol violence.Â
Should we even count people who die by strangulation? Hanging? Beatings with fists? Beatings with bricks? Clubbing? Stabbing? Homicide by vehicle? Being lit on fire? Abduction and torture? Poisoning? Maybe these donât count. There is domestic violence, gang violence and gun violence. The restâviolence in generalâwe can ignore.
So the governor doesnât want to end sexual violence, drug violence or alcohol violence. She wants to end gun violence. And, in fact, her campaign platform promised to address criminal use of guns. Noble goals. But the proof is in the pudding. Letâs take a look at her âboldâ action.
Her response is to isolate law-abiding citizens and violate only their rights under both federal and state constitutions. Her idea seems to be that stopping law-abiding citizens from carrying firearms in public will have a knock-on effect among criminals and other felonious firearms carriers. If you stop, theyâll stop. Monkey see, monkey do. This is dizzying in its stupidity. I feel dumber for even trying to worm through her logic.
If that is not dizzying enough she admitted in the very same news conference that her divine fiat will ânot have an impact on criminalsâ and that law-abiding gun owners âhave never been a problem.â
Letâs seek some oxygen at a lower altitude. Hereâs bold for you. Announce that you are taking constitutional rights away from criminals. Announce Operation Clean Sweep. Announce that anyone with prior convictions for drug trafficking and weapons violations, and their associates, will be picked up without a warrant and held in jail until gun deaths drop to an acceptable level. The sheriff and police chief know who the bad actors are. Probably by name. Why is it not considered bold to let criminals bear the burden of their criminality?.
The immediate counter-argument would be that you cannot do that. They have rights. For sure. And âwe the peopleâ seem to know what rights criminals have. Most of us would probably get at least part of the Miranda phrase correct. And I think we all agree that protecting those rights is an important part of our democracy.
But do âwe the peopleâ know what rights law-abiding citizens have? And will we agree that protecting those rights is an important part of our democracy? We are on less certain ground there. Particularly among progressive politicians. Our president, the man who bears the responsibility of standing at the worldâs loudest bully pulpit, called law-abiding gun owners âsick.â (As a reference this same man sent cluster bombs and radioactive anti-tank shells to Ukraine.) New Mexicoâs governor, Hillary II, is simply aping her leader.Â
So what is she really up to? The David Hoggs, Shannon Watts, Josh Sugarmanns, Michael Bloombergs and Whoopi Goldbergs of the country have a shared myopic goal: disarm our countryâs citizens. Grishamâs calculus is that by âboldlyâ joining those ranks she can cement her place in the party structure. Everytown, or similar organizations these folks run or support, seek every crack they might later drive a wedge into to achieve that disarmament.
One of those cracks would be declaring public health emergencies. Sars-COV-2 proved that governments can exercise wide latitude during health âemergencies.â So, the question is how else can these âemergenciesâ be manipulated?
I donât believe that direct success is a hoped for outcome. So far her annulment has encountered exactly the response youâd expect. The Bernalillo County sheriff is staying with his oath to the Constitution. The state district attorney is not offering a path to prosecute violators. And a judge has already issued a temporary injunction basedâit should be notedâon a summary judgment.
What is hoped for, and will probably bear fruit, is the second tier effect which is two-fold. The first is posturing Democrats as the only ones who care about gun violence. Advantage Grisham. After all they made up the term gun violence to the exclusion of all other violence and criminality. With that misdirection they have your focus. This to the point of convincing you that my even going to an FFL to get my universal background check and buy a gun is indicative of criminal intent. And I have never gotten even so much as a jay walking ticket.Â
The second is convincing the public that guns are a health problem. For that Iâd also say âAdvantage, Grisham.â They already have the CDC in their camp. And the CDC would love nothing better than to draw your focus away from Americaâs state of health. After all, despite the astounding numbers, rape is not a public health crisis. Drugs are not a public health crisis. Alcohol is not a public health crisis. Addling pre-pubescent brains with psychotropic drugs is not a public health crisis. Poverty is not a public health crisis. Social isolation is not a public health crisis. Obesity is not a public health crisis. Nope. But legal gun ownership is a public health crisis.Â
This message is as relentless as it is successful. Success is not overturning the Second Amendment. What will happen is that it will be hollowed out by legislation, taxation, regulation, litigation, prosecution, and public opinion.
I implore you to consider this before we get further down that road. Give pause to consider what dominoes fall after this one. The Bill of Rights is stitched together by your three core inalienable rights. Which of the three do you want the government to control? Your life? Your liberty? Your property? And if they control one donât they control the rest?
So I get it. You donât like guns. Yes, they are loud and dangerous. And yes, defending yourself with one is a horrific thought. You will never do it. (Frankly, if you feel that way you may have given this more thought than many Second Amendment advocates.) So the Second Amendment has no role in your life. But surely other articles in the Bill of Rights do. Are there any of those you would like to keep? Can we really slowly dissolve one without showing the powerful and tyrannical how to dissolve the rest?
Crime has endured throughout humanity. So has violence. Entire police forces, or entire governments have become authoritarian or tyrannical. Power or wealth cyclically concentrates into two-tiered societies. In short, someone or something is always after your life, liberty or property. The Founding Fathers offered ways to keep the barbarians from our gates and the wolves from our doors. We can recognize their wisdom and our rights. As Voltaire suggested, we should tend that garden. If not we may someday find it has gone to seed.
Iâll finish the way I began. People of New Mexico: Your governor is not coming to save you. She is nothing, just infantile tyranny in purple pumps. But her tiny chip erodes the Second Amendment. When it is hollowed out, then come the hobnail boots.
**NEVER DO THIS! This phrase is meant only to convey a fear of immediate threat or harm. Sleeping with a gun under your pillow is stupid and breaks several rules of gun safety.