The COVID-19 pandemic gave a lot of Democrat officials a taste of dictatorial power, and many got away with it for quite some time. Sadly, I suspect no lessons were learned, and the message many got out of it was that there’s no power grab you can’t at least attempt. As such, on Friday, New Mexico Gov. Michell Lujan Grisham, a Democrat (of course), “suspended” gun rights in the state via a public health order, essentially declaring gun violence a public health emergency.
The public health order, which was made in the wake of open and concealed carry laws being passed in Albuquerque, states that “no person, other than a law enforcement officer or licensed security officer, shall possess a firearm … either openly or concealed, within cities or counties averaging 1,000 or more violent crimes per 100,000 residents per year since 2021.”
The order goes under review every 30 days.
This shocking violation of the Second Amendment rights of New Mexico residents, echoes Joe Biden’s declaration of a public health crisis before he was even inaugurated to use as pretext for unilaterally imposing gun control measures upon taking office — which, of course, he has done, and which, of course, clearly did not work.
Also for our VIPs: Dems Hate the Constitution: New Mexico Gov. Bans Gun Carry in Albuquerque
Grisham, like so many other Democrats, including Joe Biden, doesn’t seem to think that the Constitution matters. When asked by a reporter if her public health order was unconstitutional, Grisham admitted that she was using the public health emergency as pretext for violating the Constitution.
“You took an oath to the Constitution,” the reporter pointed out. “Isn’t it unconstitutional to say you cannot exercise your carry license?”
“With one exception, and that is, if there’s an emergency, and I’ve declared an emergency for a temporary amount of time, I can invoke additional powers,” Grisham replied. “No constitutional right, in my view, including my oath, is attended to be absolute. There are restrictions on free speech, there are restrictions on my freedoms. In this emergency, this 11-year-old, all these parents who have lost all these children — they deserve my attention to have the debate about whether or not we can create a safer environment.”
This is how Democrats think: the Constitution is just a suggestion that they don’t have to follow, and declaring a bogus public health emergency empowers them to trample on the rights of citizens. While there’s no question that this order won’t have the desired effect, there is a question about whether this dictatorial act will backfire on the Democrats.
Constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley argues that it will. “The order, in my view, is flagrantly unconstitutional under existing Second Amendment precedent. It could also be a calculated effort to evade a ruling by making the period of suspension so short that it becomes moot before any final decision is reached by a court,” Turley writes on his website. “Yet, challengers could argue that the matter is not moot when the order can be and is likely to be repeated in the future. That is always a challenging claim to make, but it is clearly true in this case. What is clear is that this is unambiguously and undeniably unconstitutional under existing precedent. Even if an injunction is secured on the basis of a presumptively unconstitutional act, many will of course celebrate the boldness of Grisham in taking away an individual right under a clever measure. It is, however, too clever by half. If a court decides that this is not moot at the end of the period, New Mexico could supply a vehicle to curtail future such claims.”
Turley cited a number of examples of how efforts to curb Second Amendment rights in various states have resulted in tremendous victories for gun rights advocates.
Frankly, I don’t think this issue ends with gun rights. As the pandemic showed, various aspects of public life were impacted by public health orders, many of which were later deemed unconstitutional. Is it so hard to imagine that repeated abuse of public health orders could render all public health orders unconstitutional?
