Making Her Own "No Guns" Signs

 Cam Edwards at Bearing Arms reports that the New Mexico governor says she's banning concealed carry in state's biggest city. If you watch the press conference where she announced this executive order making the entire city off limits to good guys with guns, she says it is because drug dealers are standing around on street corners with guns sticking out of their pants. But, no, she can't arrest them. Asking why not no doubt will yield a bunch of harumphing all around, but the truth is that she is well aware that the good guys with guns will obey, while the criminals will not. It calls into question whether or not she cares about the average New Mexican.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is begging for a lawsuit and putting lives in danger with a new executive order issued on Friday afternoon that bans both open and concealed carry in Albuquerque for at least the next 30 days.

...snip...

Over the past five years Democrats in New Mexico have steadily restricted lawful gun owners, enshrining “universal” background checks, “red flag” laws, and several other anti-gun measures into law. Those laws haven’t led to lower crime rates in Albuquerque, so now Grisham is taking her biggest shot yet at gun owners and trying to criminalize their right to bear arms at a time when she admits the city’s streets are incredibly dangerous.

It’s not lawful gun owners or concealed carry holders who are the cause of this crime, but Grisham is still painting them as the problem, and violating their Second Amendment rights while scapegoating them for the failures of her own gun control agenda.

Grisham fully expects to be challenged, and one suspects to be overturned. But by then, the 30 days will be up and of course will be mooted by the courts. But it is the blatant idea that it is guns, rather than the criminals wielding the guns, that is the problem of violence. Suspending the rights of concealed carriers will make no difference. And while you can suspend the rights of the criminals (who are already prohibited), they will not obey your stupid edicts. Arrest, which seems to be off the table is the only way to stop them from killing.

It seems as if Governor Grisham has been looking at the wrong youtube channels and drawing the wrong conclusions.

Update: Olivia Murray at the American Thinker has an excellent article on entitled NM governor issues emergency public health order...banning the carrying of firearms. She points to something that I had not caught, that this edict was styled as a "public health emergency." Of course it is nothing of the sort. It is a criminal matter pure and simple. And her saying that there are too many to arrest betrays a lack of imagination. If the police arrest a small percentage and throw the book at them, the rest will get the message. Of course, the criminals will still illegally carry weapons, but they will be both more circumspect about doing so, and more careful about shooting innocent bystanders.

Murray also accurately states to whom we owe our rights:

Lujan Grisham is accurate in her assessment that there are restrictions on freedoms, because we aren’t free to go out and indiscriminately murder (unless you live in a hard-blue city), without facing punitive consequences, but murder isn’t a God-given right protected by the supreme law of the land; however, the right to self-defense is, which is the whole point of the Bill of Rights.

It annoys me to no end when conservatives concede (albeit unwittingly) to the left’s war on language (and liberty). Rights do not come from government, they come from God; God, not government, is the ultimate authority. Like the Declaration says:

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 [emphasis added], that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men [emphasis added], deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….

God gave to (endowed) mankind rights that He alone has the authority to revoke, and the sole purpose of government is to secure, or guarantee these rights. To say things like “constitutional right” (as Lujan Grisham did) or “Second Amendment right” is irresponsible — the correct phrase is “constitutionally-protected rights.” The right to self-defense is a right given to mankind by God, and it is a right that is recognized and protected by the Second Amendment. God is entirely a part of the equation, whether people want to accept it or not.

Be sure to read both articles.