OPINION:
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham “suspended” the right to carry a firearm for 30 days — and that’s “suspended,” in quotation marks, because she actually has no authority to do any such thing — yet she ordered it anyway citing, wait for it, wait for it, a public health emergency.
“Gun violence is an epidemic,” Grisham said.
To all you COVID cowards out there who folded and cowered and obeyed based on the government’s declared emergency health orders — told you. It wasn’t a conspiracy to warn about government’s endless use of emergency health crises to steal individual liberties. New Mexico’s resident tyrant-in-chief Grisham is simply taking the next step in the process of crumbling America’s Constitution; the next natural step that patriots warned would come if fear-driven COVID crises were allowed to be created and then controlled by government.
A health emergency covers a pretty broad spectrum.
“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,” Grisham said, ABC News reported.
Citing the shooting deaths of three children, including the tragic killing of an 11-year-old boy at a baseball game, the governor declared gun violence a public health emergency and as such — as such as Democrats do — wrote a decree stripping law-abiding citizens of their God-given rights to protect themselves, that is, to bear arms.
“Citizens with permits to carry firearms are free to possess their weapons on private property (such as at a gun range or gun store), provided they transport the firearm in a locked box, use a trigger lock, or [use] some other mechanism that renders the gun incapable of being fired,” Grisham said in her statement.
How generous.
There’s the Second Amendment, guaranteeing that government shall not infringe upon the right of citizens to bear arms — and then there’s Grisham, saying no, no, no, not in my house; in New Mexico, the Constitution does not apply.
This is not about protecting children from violence.
This is not about saving lives.
This is not about reducing gun-related deaths, keeping the innocent from injury, or even implementing commonsense provisions to help stop the spread of crime.
This is about testing the waters for widespread use of emergency health orders to steal citizens’ rights to carry, rights to possess, rights to own firearms — so as to eventually and totally and completely crumble the Second Amendment.
This is nothing short of a government takeover of individual rights.
And in America, we have a word for that — tyranny. Likewise, in America, we have a solution for that: the Declaration of Independence.
It reads: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed — that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.”
Of course, gun rights’ groups have already filed suit against New Mexico’s governor.
She knew it would happen.
She welcomed it happening.
“There are gonna be a lot of questions about whether or not we think we have the legal rights to do [this],” she said.
She “welcome[s] the debate and fight,” she said.
“I have emergency powers,” she said. “Gun violence is an epidemic. Therefore, it’s an emergency.”
The only emergency here is a Democratic Party that will stop at nothing to steal individual liberties from the American people.
The fact Grisham knows her order is headed to court, even as she issued the order, indicates how little she cares about using tax dollars for frivolous suits that could have been avoided. The fact that Democrats have been talking up the idea of putting gun violence under the umbrella of a public health crisis for years now indicates this tyrant’s attempt to take down the Second Amendment is just the first of many to come.
Grisham is the canary in the coal mine for all the Democrats hope to accomplish with gun control. Much, much more to come. Many, many more to follow.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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