To say that gun violence in Albuquerque and New Mexico has become a public health emergency is almost an understatement. Just about anybody here can get shot these days — in movie theaters, exiting baseball games, or at cultural rallies from Old Town Albuquerque to Española. Children and even babies are not spared. Sometimes it seems like a child is shot every day of the week. Road rage has become so common it’s a regular driving risk. Our society is saturated with so many guns that almost anyone deranged by drink, drugs, politics or fury can find a pistol lying around and shoot someone dead.
We’re living in a hair trigger city and state. Everyone knows it. And nobody is doing anything about it.
Except Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. She was brave enough earlier this month to make a start at trying to put a legal firewall between shooters and the rest of us. And what has she gotten for her effort? Nothing but grief.
Of course, shoot-from-the hip Republicans screamed bloody murder over her executive order declaring gun violence in Albuquerque to be a public health emergency. The governor was responding to the murder of two children — one an11-year old, the other a five-year old — one of whom died in a road rage incident, the other in a drive-by shooting.
To Republican firearm fanatics, the governor’s proposed month-long experiment of forbidding the carrying of guns in Bernalillo County and in State buildings was an unconstitutional anathema. Most disappointingly, though, leaders from the governor’s own party refused to even give her proposal a fair try. They behaved like Republicans, believing apparently that the “gun issue” has already been settled by the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2008 and 2010 that the Second Amendment guaranteed the right of Americans to possess firearms, at least in the home. These leaders, including prosecutors and judges, chickened out and kowtowed to the gun lobby. It’s been clear all along that even the Supreme Court’s arch conservatives left many legal avenues still open for the regulation of firearms.
The governor refused be fatalistic. She had the guts to not turn her back on all the rest of us who are potential gun victims. Her executive order was a long-overdue first step in exploring still available legal possibilities to put a safety switch on irresponsible gun behavior in our state.
The governor’s executive order wasn’t trying to dispossess anyone of their firearms. Possession was not the issue. Her executive order was directed at regulating the carrying of guns in public. While it is a constitutionally protected right to possess a gun to protect your home, the Supreme Court left it that carrying, displaying and threatening with a gun in public was still open to legal restraint.
The 2010 decision on the Second Amendment was championed by conservative Justice Antonine Scalia, and his conservative followers Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Swing Justice Anthony Kennedy went along with them.
Their decision was the height of hypocrisy. By ignoring the founder’s curious syntax in the Second Amendment, which still clearly attaches gun ownership to the establishment of militias, these conservative justices went against their own “originist” ideology which gives them license to make judgments based on their imaginative interpretations of the original intent of the authors of the Constitution.
The Second Amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
The Supreme Court’s 2008-2010 majority opinion is ripe for challenge and re-interpretation. Scalia famously defended the ruling, according to the National Constitutional Center, saying that the Second Amendment “protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”
Even with Scalia’s unfathomable dismissal of the Second Amendment’s subordinate opening clause, he never mentioned any “right” to carry a gun, only to possess one for home defense. Nor does he condemn the regulation of “handguns” as long as the rights of ownership aren’t obstructed.
That cities and states can regulate behavior relating to the possession of firearms is still a legitimate possibility. I believe that’s what Governor Lujan Grisham’s executive order was designed to explore. But the opposition to her experiment was so vehement, she had to back off. Her noble effort to start an open debate about public gun behavior was smothered by the mighty gun lobby and its shrieking acolytes and political shills. As for the rest of us, it’s a new kind of duck and cover.
*Nullius in verba: take nobody’s word for it
Welcome back, V. B.! We all need periodic vacations from our work; they enable us to return stronger and more focused. This column about gun-control and the terrible spate of shootings we’ve endured here is spot-on for this moment. Thank you for always telling it as it is, and for clarifying the language we are so ready to misquote and misuse–in this case the Second Amendment to the US Contitution.
Did you see the letter passed around asking for endorsement of the right to “bare” arms? Conservatives were signing right up. Nobody answered when I pointed out the mistake.
Thank you V. B. Welcome back. We missed you.
There is nothing better than a dose of reality. Today’s guns are not a ‘ramrod, black powder musket’. They are powerful war machines. So much for the “romantic” idea of a gun.
Governor Michelle Luján Grisham was correct to pause us all. Now let’s take a breathe and try again!
We returned to Santa Fe after good academic careers in the East. My late husband, Dr. Ira Cohen (a New Yorker) used to delight in the daily “Police Blotter” box in The New Mexican, because the crimes were so hilarious: “someone poached all the peaches from my tree”; “my neighbor clipped my side of the hedge”; “some kids stole my lawnmower”, etc. He found our criminals charming. There had been no gun deaths for three years. He died of a heart attack while skiing a long time ago, and every day, I realize how appalled he would be if he had lived this long. I’m interested in the National Constitutional Center and am wondering if they delve into “meanings” or do they just report? I’ll check it out. Thank you. You’re the wise coyote in the arroyo.
Thank you once again, VB. Your columns are always thought-provoking, reasonable, and responsible. Please consider sending this to the ABQ Journal, and perhaps some national newspapers such as the Washington Post and New York Times, as an op-ed. It needs to reach as far as possible.
Many of us were disheartened by the knee-jerk reaction of otherwise good Dems who abandoned MLG’s principled effort to “do something, don’t just stand there.” And just because a few SCOTUS extremists decided that the 2nd amendment means anyone can wield dangerous weapons anywhere doesn’t make it right.
Welcome home, VD!
Thank you for all the support you have given in your columns, to our admirable and courageous governor.
I was one of those quick to accept popular opinion without questioning whether we would see a court decide upon the constitutionality of MLG’s order. I thought if our sheriff joined the bandwagon, it must be true. I acknowledge my weakness and thanks to VB for returning to right and reason. I also agree with Betsy Greenlee that this piece should be submitted to NY Times or other venues. It’s too important to only be seen by us.
Guns have been every where in NM. Guns were on display for little children to view, Just as Porn mag’s were on the bottom shelf for us to pickup. I knew a kid who kept going to jail for breaking into peoples houses. We asked him why he did it and he said he would look through the window and see displays of guns like glass china cabinets .
Unfortunately, New Mexico has always thought of it’s self as the wild wild west. You are already the theft capital. Part of the problem I think is New Mexico schools are rated as poor. I had poor grades in NM, but when I moved to Wisconsin my grades became B+’s. The kids the schools catered to were the rich. Last time I was there I met a man who I knew in Junior High, he had sat down with his teachers and said he wanted to do better, the next teacher in line just looked at his past record or the teachers he talked to did not write it down for future teachers to read. In 1966 kids were talking about guns they owned or wanted to own. The kid that owned a Glock pistol became a police officer and retired with honors. It is woven with in our society!
And if Trump does win it will only get worse. Gun are owned by many who are his backers. One needs to learn how to defend themselves, some have thought of buying a gun in defense. We live in dangerous times. Leaning to talk people out of violence and put down their guns. To talk to politicians into reality ask them if they would like to play a game of Nuclear War (a movie where a computer figured out it could not win).
Guns is just the beginning …..
most people I know who own guns used the to hunt for food, or to set fire to piles of tumbleweed on their land.
Unfortunately if you walk in a gun shop they do not ask you what you will be using it for. They just want a sale.
And when Trump was in office Republicans I knew were buying as much Amo as they could buy.