New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham had to know that she’d get pushback with her declaration of a “public health emergency” regarding violent crime in Albuquerque and the subsequent order banning the lawful carry of firearms there.
I mean, it’s a gun order. There’s literally no way that she could be oblivious to the fact that a lot of people weren’t going to like it.
However, Grisham got a lot more than she likely bargained for.
I mean, members of her own party pushed back. Then, on top of everything, a court issued a restraining order stopping enforcement of the rule.
But Grisham isn’t taking her lumps and learning from them. No, she’s trying to push back.
The governor told “GMA3” earlier Wednesday she has the “courage” to take a stand against gun violence in response to backlash over her emergency public health order.
“Everyone is terrified of the backlash for all of these political reactions,” Lujan Grisham told Eva Pilgrim on “GMA3” Wednesday. “None of those individuals or groups focused on the actual injuries or deaths of the public.”
“They aren’t dealing with this as the crisis that it is,” she continued.
…
“How would you feel in a city or a community if people had handguns in their belts, on parks, near schools, on public trails, at the grocery store?” Lujan Grisham told “GMA3.” “It’s outrageous and it must stop. And I will keep doing everything that’s based in science and fact and public safety efforts to clean up our cities to make this the safest state in America. And I will not stop until that’s done.”
The thing is, it’s not the bad guys walking around openly carrying. Criminals never open carry so far as I’ve seen.
If this is what Grisham is pushing then it’s about theater, not safety. It’s about giving the illusion of making things better. What’s more, she knows it.
Of course, much of this is about responding to the pushback to her order.
She also had this to say following the restraining order being issued.
“As governor, I see the pain of families who lost their loved ones to gun violence every single day, and I will never stop fighting to prevent other families from enduring these tragedies,” Lujan Grisham said in the written statement.
“Over the past four days, I’ve seen more attention on resolving the crisis of gun violence than I have in the past four years,” she said.
No, she hasn’t.
What she’s seen is her entire party–at least those who spoke out–calling her out for this blatantly unconstitutional action. Everyone has been telling her that she can’t do what she’s tried to do and now a federal court has done the same.
Grisham’s problem is that she can’t see beyond her own partisan blinders. She can’t comprehend that there might possibly be ways to address violent crime in cities like Albuquerque that don’t involve restricting people’s rights.
Which is funny, because this whole “public health crisis” isn’t just about restricting guns. Among other things, it calls for state police to go to Albuquerque to help crack down on violent crime in the city. It actually does do a few things that might well help all on its own, and they’re far less controversial than trying to unilaterally restrict someone’s basic, constitutionally protected rights.
Then again, so many anti-gun Democrats can’t think beyond gun control for solutions to such issues.
And that’s a problem since gun control doesn’t really solve those issues.
