Florida Governor and 2024 Presidential Candidate Ron DeSantis slammed New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham over her announcement on Friday, suspending gun rights for 30 days.
The Democratic governor of New Mexico ordered that open and conceal carry laws be suspended for 30 days in public areas in the city of Albuguergue and Bernalillo County, as part of a “public health emergency” declaration.
“The time for standard measures has passed,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “And when New Mexicans are afraid to be in crowds, to take their kids to school, to leave a baseball game — when their very right to exist is threatened by the prospect of violence at every turn — something is very wrong.”
DeSantis slammed the “public health emergency” on Saturday morning, declaring, “Just a few months after ending the COVID ‘public health emergency,’ the Governor of New Mexico has declared a new ‘public health emergency’: Guns.”
“She is now asserting the power to infringe on Second Amendment rights by executive fiat. This assertion is not surprising — since 2020, ‘public health’ has become a pretext for depriving citizens of civil liberties and trampling on our Constitutional rights,” DeSantis proclaimed.
DeSantis declared, “It ends when I am President. Your 2nd Amendment rights SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.”
Others have criticized the decision as well.
State representatives Stefani Lord and John Block are now calling for the Governor’s impeachment, declaring that “This is an abhorrent attempt at imposing a radical, progressive agenda on an unwilling populace. Rather than addressing crime at its core, Governor Grisham is restricting the rights of law-abiding gun owners.”
The National Rifle Association said Gov. Grisham’s “unconstitutional assertion of canceling the 1st and 2nd Amendments in an ’emergency’ echoes tactics seen in tyrannical regimes, not in a free America,” adding, “The NRA remains vigilant in protecting the rights of every American citizen.”
Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said that “The 2nd amendment isn’t a recommendation. It’s a right. Friendly suggestion to @GovMLG on how to *actually* reduce violent crime in your state: focus on sealing your own state’s southern border & stop the virtue signaling elsewhere.”
Constitutional law attorney Jonathan Turley wrote “The order, in my view, is flagrantly unconstitutional under existing Second Amendment precedent. It could also be a calculated effort to evade a ruling by making the period of suspension so short that it becomes moot before any final decision is reached by a court.”
