Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Saturday denounced his Democratic counterpart from New Mexico for unilaterally imposing gun control on her citizens.
Scratching an itch that liberals have long wanted scratched, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Thursday cited gun violence as a public health emergency in announcing that both open- and concealed-carry would be banned for 30 days in public areas within the city of Albuquerque and Bernalillo County
Grisham was responding to the shooting death of an 11-year-old boy this week. The boy was apparently the victim of a road-rage incident.
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“I have to take a tough direct stand, or basically I’m just ignoring the fact that we lost an 11-year-old, another child,” Grisham told reporters on Friday in announcing the ban.
According to the website Santa Fe New Mexican, the executive order she issued on Thursday directed the state Department of Health to compile and issue “a comprehensive report on gunshot victims presenting at hospitals in New Mexico.”
Grisham reserved the right to “either amend or remove or adjust” the order once the 30 days expired.
DeSantis was among several conservatives who slammed Grisham for an obvious breach of her constituents’ Second Amendment rights.
“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,” DeSantis said on X (formerly Twitter).
“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. It ends when I am President. Your 2nd Amendment rights SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED,” he added.
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One of those who joined DeSantis in criticizing Grisham was GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado.
“The Governor of New Mexico now wants to arrest law-abiding gun owners simply for owning guns. Either she isn’t aware of the Constitution or has simply decided to go fascist and ignore it. Either way, we have a problem,” Borbert said.
As the Tampa Free Press reported on Saturday, even some liberals asserted that Grisham crossed a line.
Left-wing anti-gun activist David Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in South Florida, said, “I support gun safety but there is no such thing as a state public health emergency exception to the U.S. Constitution.”
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