Update! New Mexico State Representatives Stefani Lord and John Block are calling for the Impeachment of New Mexico Governor Michelle Grisham after her executive order that violates the Second Amendment rights of citizens. “I have a newsflash for the Governor: The Second Amendment is an absolute right, and so is my authority to impeach you for violating your oath to New Mexico and the United States.”
The governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, a member of the Democratic Party, has declared that the right of civilians to carry firearms in public has been suspended for thirty days. The suspension is imposed on Albuquerque and the surrounding county. The reason for Grisham’s action is the sharp rise in gun violence in the city. Grisham says she can do this because no right is absolute and she possesses the power as the executive of her state to unilaterally determine the exercise of that right. She also said that she is not obligated to honor her oath of office in an emergency.
Typical of Democrats, Grisham appealed to the protection of children in justifying her actions. There have been in recent dats a handful of instances of gun deaths involving teenagers. On Wednesday night, eleven-year-old Froyland Villegas was shot and killed outside Isotopes Park, a minor league baseball stadium. At a nearby trailer park, four teenagers opened fire, resulting in a gunshot injury to five-year-old Galilea Samaniego, who was struck in the head. A fourteen-year-old boy used his father’s gun to fatally shoot thirteen-year-old Amber Archuleta. (Overall, Hispanics are overrepresented among both perpetrators and victims of gun homicides.)
While it is true that no right is absolute, Grisham’s actions are unconstitutional, and her actions and reasoning should alert the people of New Mexico that they voted into office a dangerous authoritarian. Her actions and reasoning should also signal to the rest of the country what Democrats have in mind for gun rights going forward. They will paradoxically use the rise in gun crimes to argue for more restrictions on gun rights. Put another way, just when Americans need to carry firearms, they are seeing their right to self-defense abridged.
Saying that a constitutional right is not absolute is another way of saying that laws require specification, i.e., that they’re subject to limitations and restrictions, qualifications best determined by the legislators who write the laws and the courts that interpret them—not by administrative fiat. Courts play a special role in determining the constitutionality of government actions that restrict rights, ensuring that any limitations are justified, narrowly tailored, and consistent with the principles of a democratic society.
As a strict constitutionalist, I’m the first person to emphasize that need to balance rights against other important societal interests or rights. In some cases, the exercise of one person’s rights may conflict with the rights or well-being of others or with the broader public interest. Courts recognize that governments can impose reasonable restrictions on the time, place, and manner in which certain rights are exercised. For example, limitations on the location and timing of public protests may be imposed to ensure public safety and prevent disruptions. You cannot sit in the middle of the road and obstruct traffic. This is unsafe and disruptive. It moreover violates the fundamental right of individuals to freely travel.
Restrictions on speech cannot however be for the purpose of preventing the free exercise of speech. If the argument is that the state must suppress speech questioning a government narrative because it is disruptive to that narrative, then the very purpose of free speech is being denied—speech is protected in a democracy because it is a means to challenge the claims of authority. We saw during recent pandemic state agencies working closely with social media platforms to censor speech skeptical of claims made by public health authorities. This was a violation of the First Amendment, not a specification of it.
Examples of rights that are not absolute and can be subject to limitations include restrictions on obscenity or incitement to violence; limitations on religious practices that pose health or safety risks or violate laws of general applicability (i.e., regulations that apply uniformly to all individuals or entities within a specific jurisdiction without targeting a particular group); regulations on firearm ownership and possession, such as background checks and restrictions on certain types of weapons. But the need to specify or qualify a right is not a license to negate that right by administrative fiat.
It is not acceptable for the governor of a state to say that those who have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms cannot exercise that right in a manner consistent with a law passed by the legislature of that state because there has been an increase in gun violence. The right to keep and bear arms exists so that civilians can effectively defend themselves against those who mean them harm. It’s during a time where one is more likely to become a victim of gun violence that possessing a firearm becomes most necessary. To say you cannot defend yourself from gun violence is a direct violation of the right to self defense. A rise in gun violence is a time to remind people of their right to keep and carry firearms not a time to restrict their right to self-defense.
I don’t know if readers of Freedom and Reason are aware of this, but over the last several years the Albuquerque Police Department has been compelled by a court-ordered agreement with Barack Obama’s Department of Justice to implement mandated modifications in its operations. This initiative has incurred a financial burden of tens of million of dollars for taxpayers, covering expenses related to equipment, staffing, and training, as well as the appointment of a court monitor. It has also led to an increase in serious crime in Albuquerque. Notably, recent FBI crime statistics reveal a drastic increase in frequency of violent crime, including murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults during this period.
This is the consequence of depolicing, and the citizens of New Mexico are being told that not only will the police not protect you from gun violence anymore, but that you can’t to protect yourself from gun violence, either. Why would the government want to leave citizens defenseless in the face of rising criminal violence? The citizens of New Mexico need to ask Governor Grisham this question.
freedom and reason 