OPINION:
When New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham unconstitutionally banned the carrying of guns in Bernalillo County, citing a “public health emergency,” it reminded us of what we learned about liberal politicians during the COVID-19 pandemic.
First, when they have power, they think they are above the law. They casually issue dictatorial orders that implement their prejudices without regard to the Constitution. They represent the rule of power instead of the rule of law.
Second, like much of their left-wing ideology, they base their decision on phony information and false analysis. There is no evidence that honest citizens carrying weapons are dangerous. There’s all the evidence that criminals don’t care about the law. The governor would have disarmed the innocent while doing nothing to affect lawbreakers.
Third, they often exempt themselves and their own behavior from their rules. For example, the governor decreed that innocent citizens could not carry their own weapons, but her security force could have guns when no one else was allowed.
Fourth, they will impose their will and ideology on citizens (whether they are gun owners, concerned parents, or people who want to live their lives and be left alone). When the rest of us disagree with the left, the left uses the power of government to coerce us against our will.
Fifth, when cornered, they will lie and assume that the public is too dumb — or the news media are too timid — to contradict them.
Ms. Lujan Grisham carried this pattern to new levels of lunacy with her gun ban.
Amy Swearer captured just how crazy the governor is in the Daily Signal.
“New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham last week accomplished a feat that few politicians have ever come close to managing: She issued a gun control order so outrageous that it received an overwhelming, bipartisan rebuke and left gun control activists speechless. … The order is insanely unconstitutional. Ms. Grisham doesn’t seem to care,” Ms. Swearer wrote.
“Yes, you read that correctly. It’s not just unconstitutional. It’s insanely unconstitutional. No sane, sober, or prudent governor who has read the Constitution (or even spent five minutes reading the Cliff Notes version of Second Amendment case law) would issue such an order with any inkling of hope that it might pass constitutional muster.”
Americans reject the New Mexico governor’s bias against free citizens. As Scott Rasmussen reported in a poll done by RMG: “Fifty-two percent (52%) of voters say that banning private ownership of guns so that only police and other government officials had them would make Americans less safe. … Thirty-six percent (36%) say it would make Americans safer.”
Furthermore, Rasmussen reported that “by a margin of 52% to 34%, voters would rather live in a community where people are allowed to own guns than in one where guns are outlawed.”
The unconstitutional, lawbreaking, public opinion-defying governor of New Mexico is just one more example of how out of touch big government socialists are with the American people.
On virtually every issue, the radical left is determined to use government power to force people to do what it wants, regardless of their views.
The left regularly violates President Abraham Lincoln’s principle that we are for the government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
The New Mexico governor’s assault on the Second Amendment is just one more reminder of how radical the left has become — and how much its devotees want to force you to obey regardless of the law.
• For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com.
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