New Mexico governor defiant as authorities refuse to enforce gun ban
New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is forging ahead with an unconstitutional gun ban despite refusals by the state’s attorney general and law enforcement to defend it.
Lujan Grisham last week declared gun violence a public health emergency and prohibited taxpayers from carrying firearms for 30 days after an 11-year-old boy was shot to death. While she admitted the order stood on shaky legal footing, Lujan Grisham claimed that no constitutional right is absolute, and neither is her oath to uphold the Constitution.
But law enforcement authorities are refusing to enforce the “public health order” saying it violates the Second Amendment. Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina has vowed not to implement the ban, and Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen also promised not to enforce the order which he called “unconstitutional.”
Sheriff Allen also explained that enforcing the ban would tie police up in court proceedings and siphon resources away from fighting crime.
“In a couple of months or a year down the road we’re the ones stuck in court, and we’re the ones getting sued over all of these infringement of rights and all these other court battles when I could be focusing so much more on crime,” Sheriff Allen told CNN this week.
New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez, a Democrat like Lujan Grisham, is also refusing to defend the order in court as it violates the Constitution.
“I am writing to inform you that my office will not defend your administration in the above referenced cases challenging the Public Health Emergency Order. . .” Torrez wrote in a letter to the governor Tuesday.
“Though I recognize my statutory obligation as New Mexico’s chief legal officer to defend state officials when they are sued in their official capacity, my duty to uphold and defend the constitutional rights of every citizen takes precedence,” his letter continued. “Simply put, I do not believe that the Emergency Order will have any meaningful impact on public safety but, more importantly, I do not believe it passes constitutional muster.”
But Lujan Grisham has remained defiant, dismissing law enforcement’s concerns about constitutional violations.
“It’s not for police to tell me what’s constitutional or not,” the governor told CNN’s Poppy Harlow Tuesday. “They haven’t supported one, not one gun violence effort in the State of New Mexico including domestic violence protections, universal background checks.”
“We haven’t issued any civil penalties but that doesn’t mean that we’re not and that we don’t have the ability to do that . . . and it doesn’t mean we don’t have additional police presence,” Lujan Grisham added.
New Mexicans Sunday began openly carrying their firearms in defiance of the order.
