The New Mexico governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, is under fire after a 30-day prohibition on carrying firearms in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County was issued on Friday.
Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, stated that she issued her emergency health order in response to recent shootings that resulted in the death of an 11-year-old boy.
Elon Musk was among those who objected to the action.
“At risk of stating what should be obvious, deliberately violating the Constitution is next-level illegal. How soon can this person be removed from office?” Musk wrote on X in response to a post about the governor’s action.
At risk of stating what should be obvious, deliberately violating the Constitution is next-level illegal.
How soon can this person be removed from office?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 9, 2023
Others echoed Musk’s thoughts.
Impeach and remove Lujan Grisham. We even have Elon behind us on this! https://t.co/x5IFNpNmWp
— Rep. John Block (@RepBlock) September 9, 2023
She needs to be arrested https://t.co/lZ0Fi1O7XT
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 9, 2023
Surprisingly, even voices that are ordinarily unanimously in favor of gun control opposed this action, using eerily similar language.
I support gun safety laws. However, this order from the Governor of New Mexico violates the U.S. Constitution. No state in the union can suspend the federal Constitution. There is no such thing as a state public health emergency exception to the U.S. Constitution. https://t.co/kOhLMtaOl2
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) September 9, 2023
I support gun safety but there is no such thing as a state public health emergency exception to the U.S. Constitution. https://t.co/6GfbOZLc7g
— David Hogg 🟧 (@davidhogg111) September 9, 2023
According to the New York Post, Albuquerque police chief Harold Medina said he will not enforce the order.
Fox News reports that Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen expressed concern about the order.
“While I understand and appreciate the urgency, the temporary ban challenges the foundation of our constitution, which I swore an oath to uphold,” Allen said. “I am wary of placing my deputies in positions that could lead to civil liability conflicts, as well as the potential risks posed by prohibiting law-abiding citizens from their constitutional right to self-defense,” he said.
Greg Baca, a Republican state senator, deemed the response to be inappropriate.
“A child is murdered, the perpetrator is still on the loose, and what does the governor do? She … targets law-abiding citizens with an unconstitutional gun order,” he said.
In an Op-Ed in National Review, Charles C.W. Cooke wrote, “This is not how the law works in America.”
“As far as I can see, there’s nothing in any New Mexico statute that gives the governor the power to declare an emergency suspending the right to carry, and there’s certainly nothing in the U.S. Constitution that does. If our elected officials were allowed to shelve our unalienable rights every time they believed that those rights were being abused by outlaws, then they wouldn’t be unalienable rights; they’d be privileges,” he wrote.
“Lujan Grisham doesn’t expect criminals to follow her illegal order, but she hopes that it will send a “resounding message”? to the people who aren’t criminals, and that this, in turn, will create “fewer risks on the street”? What?” Cooke wrote.
“That — that right there — is the practical problem with almost every gun-control measure that is ever proposed in the United States. It’s almost elegant in its futility. As data from Florida and Texas has shown, carriers are between six and seven times more law-abiding than the police. Those people don’t need to be sent a “message,” because they aren’t the problem in the first place,” he noted.
Cooke added: “The problem — the only problem — is the criminals, the very people whom Lujan Grisham acknowledges will be unaffected by her order. What a mountain of tyrannical stupidity she has built. I expect it to be short-lived.”