The hearing on a motion for a temporary restraining order in the Gun Owners of America lawsuit — Donk v. Grisham — challenging New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s unconstitutional suspension of Second Amendment rights is scheduled for 11:00a tomorrow morning. The case has been assigned to United States District Judge David Urias, an Biden appointee.

Earlier today, Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen, who had initially been, well, noncommittal about Grisham’s unconstitutional power-grab, spoke to the media and said, in no uncertain terms, that his office will not enforce the Governor’s diktat.

Again, precisely zero local authorities in Bernalillo County and the city of Albuquerque have supported Grisham’s “public health order” carry ban. And while she’s claimed that the New Mexico State Police will enforce her order, they did nothing about a protest in the city yesterday during which hundreds of openly armed individuals peacefully told her precisely what she can do with her order.

Members of her own party in the New Mexico Legislature are now asking her to rescind her clearly illegal executive order…that’s how big an embarrassing disaster Grisham has created for herself and her party in the state.

This afternoon, the NSSF issued the following advisory to the Governor . . .

NSSF, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, is warning New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to not attempt to enforce her Public Health Order requiring the state’s Regulation and Licensing Division to conduct monthly inspections of licensed firearm retailers to ensure compliance with all sales and storage laws, in addition to unconstitutionally banning the Second Amendment right to bear arms in public spaces.

“There is no other way to say it other than the entire order is blatantly unlawful,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “New Mexico’s governor does not have the authority to suspend rights protected by the Constitution for a falsely-labeled public health crisis. No where in New Mexico statute, or in regulations, does the authority exist for state officials to inspect firearm retailers. This order is devoid of any legal basis and the government of New Mexico should reconsider taking action on this unlawful order.”

There is no New Mexico statute, nor any New Mexico regulations, on compliance or storage requirements. Firearm retailers in New Mexico are heavily regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and are subject to federal laws and regulations governing the lawful and constitutionally-protected commerce in arms. New Mexico’s governor and the state Regulation and Licensing Division have no authority over the federal agency’s regulations.

Therefore, any such state “inspection” would be standardless and disrupt and harm the business operations of licensed dealers who are regulated and inspected by ATF. Should the state attempt to inspect any federal firearms licensee in the state pursuant to this unlawful order, NSSF will immediately file a legal challenge to enjoin this unlawful conduct.

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40 COMMENTS

    • Well, crap. Woke up this morning to see that the judge cancelled the TRO hearing.

      It could be that because all four cases have now been assigned to the same judge, he wants to do a single TRO hearing in all four cases, and needed to give adequate notice to all the parties.

      Or it could be that something fishy is going on.

      We’ll see soon enough.

    • I suspect/ have heard that the money is all seized Iranian assets. Also, it was Saudi Arabians who were members of Al Queda that were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Still, it seems…insensitive.

      • Seized Iranian assets? That was the same excuse used when Obama shipped $1.3 billion in pallets of cash to the mullahs back in 2016.

        The more things change …

  4. Well, well, well . . . . on Sunday, my TTAG article said:

    “My over/under for issuance of a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the carry ban is noon Tuesday.”

    Hearing on TRO is 11AM Tuesday. Quien es mas macho?

    • “Hearing on TRO is 11AM Tuesday. Quien es mas macho?”

      Any rumors on how Judge David Urias, the Obama appointee, may rule?

      • Given that even her Dem allies in NM are throwing her over the side, I’m feeling pretty good. NOBODY is supporting her, for the simple reason that her actions have no legal basis whatsoever.

        Judge Urias is pretty well credentialed for a Biden appointee, and I suspect even he is going to have severe problems with a governor who claims to have the power to suspect federal constitutional rights.

        Plus if Judge Urias was going to take a dive, methinks he would have pushed the hearing to next week or something. Think 9th Circuit . . . .

        • Showboating Gun Control democRats caught between a rock and a hard spot are seizing the opportunity to throw one of their own under the bus just to appear like the 2A is safe in their hands which of course is preposterous.

          With all the past and present gun buying going on and with Gun Control Is Racist spreading around desperate democRats will say and do anything to corral those escaping the plantation…Take that to the bank LKB et al.

      • No, that was just my prediction as to *when* it would occur. As I wrote on Sunday, even Biden appointees are likely going to choke on a naked power grab like this.

        And given the growing chorus of Dems calling on her to withdraw the order, do not be surprised if right before the hearing she withdraws the order and tries to claim the case is moot. (That would certainly moot the need for a TRO, but not the entire case, insofar as she could simply reissue it.)

        • “…do not be surprised if right before the hearing she withdraws the order and tries to claim the case is moot.”

          To my totally un-educated eye, I can see her trying to moot it, but also that an Obama appointee might grant it, to try and save face… 🙁

        • “…he’s actually a Biden appointee.”

          Pointless question –

          Would one Leftist Scum ™ court appointment be any worse that the other?

          I.E., Did one tend to appoint more ideological ‘pure’ (read, fascist) justices?

  7. Democrats are evil. Sorry, it’s just a fact.

    If anyone finds offense with that, you need to look at what your party stands for in 2023. This aint your dad’s democrat party anymore.

  9. As I have stated in earlier comments about all of this the Dems want this attack on the 2nd Amendment as well as the entire Bill of Rights to be Supreme Court Issue especially in light of the upcoming election season!! Now the matter is assigned to an Obama appointed Judge who will deny the TRO setting up an appeal to the 9th Circuit which is the most overturned circuit in the Nation thereby guaranteeing a petition to the Supreme Court who will then dodge the petition as being moot given the expiration of the time frame imposed for the suspension of Constitutional rights!

    For those supporting the Governor’s ability to suspend the Constitution by claiming that President Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus during the Civil War note that the Supreme Court, after the Civil War, overturned that suspension move indicating that the Constitution and Bill of Rights cannot be suspended under any circumstance, even war. That means that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not suggestions or recommendations but are in fact, ABSOLUTES, because our rights come from God!!!

    • While it is true that the Democrats want this as an election issue because it energizes their base there’s a more pernicious side to it that Conservatives usually overlook.

      Democrats play a long game. Lefties always do. Part of that is that they want to keep constant legal issues “in the pipeline” so that if they manage to flip the SCOTUS (or pack it) they will have a whole series of ready-made cases just waiting for the court to accept and decide in their favor, thereby giving them what they want across a large number of issues.

      It’s part of how they expand their power. They always have a line-up just in case they get the power to take advantage of it with a friendly court.

      This is one of the strategic thought processes behind lawfare.

      They play a similar game in the administrative state via rule making and hiring. The whole point is to always have a pool of power-expanding options in their back pocket for when the time is right.

      On the legislative front this is why they always have “canned” legislation ready to go or in a piecemeal form that they can cobble together extremely fast, like the ACA.

  10. “And while [New Mexico Governor Grisham has] claimed that the New Mexico State Police will enforce her order, they did nothing about a protest in the city yesterday during which hundreds of openly armed individuals …”

    Pffft. Either the Justice Department of New Mexico or the United States will deem that event an “armed insurrection” and then proceed to spend tens of thousands of man-hours combing through all of the photos and videos of the event to identify every single participant–and then prosecute them with 10+ year prison sentences.

    Social media, photo posts, and video posts to the Internet: the gifts that keep on giving (to government authoritarians).

  11. Gov’s office says the protestors will see enforcement action at a later date after their identified. Enforcement will fall to NMSP.

    It will be interesting to see where the State Police come down on this. Seems that they’re what matters, at least, vis a vis a direct charge for guns.

    They can probably wrangle up some other bullshit charge over *the incident*, something not super obvious, and have a bench warrant issued which most LE will enforce because they don’t really know what spawned the charge but merely that there’s a warrant for Person X. Beating the rap but not the ride sort of thing.

    On a side note, at least Rep. Block’s from NM (District 51, part of Alamogordo) and therefore less likely to just spew ignorant bullshit like the national level “activists” who get all hot and bothered about this but didn’t know NM was a state (this is only a mild exaggeration btw, for many of them it’s literally true) until this happened and don’t have a clue about how emboldened the Governor is after the past few years.

    I mean, the governor pretty well violated the 1A, 4A, 5A, 6A and Privileges and Immunities Clauses of the US Constitution plus multiple portions of the NM Constitution for nearly two full years and no one said a fucking word about it at the national level. Only people from NM, with family in NM or truckers even knew this was going on.

    Pardon me if I find the “outrage” now to be a little insincere. Seems like a lot of grandstanding fuckery to me.

    • “But, but, It felt so good to vote for the first woman governor of New Mexico.”

      Perhaps this is the only explanation of how she got elected?
      I think the communists/authoritarian type figured they could get into office using a h0mosexual or a black or a female candidate.
      It has worked in several cities in California and in Chicago.

      • She’s part of the one of the right families, which has basically run NM politics for decades, and she’s part of the right party because the Northern half of NM is solid blue and contains the majority of the population.

        A member of her family, Ben Lujan, got caught using publicly funded road work to have his church’s parking lot paved. You’d think that would drive the Lefties nuts. A CHURCH!?

        Nope. They didn’t care. It was Ben Lujan, he could do as he pleased. He was a very powerful member of the NM House from 1975 until he died in 2012. The last decade plus, he was the Speaker of the NM House. His son, Ben Ray, is a US Senator from NM.

        The family is old in New Mexico, predating it being a state. Nuevomexicanos, they’ve been in the area since the Spanish Colonial period. Like the Pinos, Ortizes and Ortiz y Pinos, they’re old and powerful families within the state.

        As I’ve said before, you guys don’t seem to get that NM is in some regards still run like it’s the 1800’s. As if it was still a territory or even before that.

        • Oh, yeah and also not the first woman governor of NM.

          Susana Martinez was the first woman governor, and a gun-toting Republican too. She was guv from 2011 to 2019.

  12. Yes it was always about oil. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a Republican or a Democrat. Even Bernie Sanders voted to support the Clinton war on the former Yugoslavia.
    But it seems only President Trump wants to drill for our own oil here. Even the Libertarians were against drilling here.

    Were the Saudis involved in 911 attacks. Yes they were. very much so. But I only see President Trump working to set America free from Saudi influence.

  14. It wouldn’t surprise me if the judge calls it constitutional, and certain LE go after the protestors identified at the rally with facial recognition. Or they arm up NM HHS with their own enforcers. They can’t take over the US as long as it’s armed. How do you think the WEF’s “you’ll own nothing and eat bugs, and like it” by 2030 will go over in the US if it’s citizens are armed?

    • We’re well past the time when politicians who advance, vote for, or sign unconstitutional legislation (or enact unconstitutional executive orders) face career consequences of the “fired, disgraced, shipped across state lines, and never heard from again” variety.

      The left keeps pushing unconstitutional laws and orders because it works. The controversy and lawfare are the point: raising money, rousing the proggy troops, sapping the energy of ordinary citizens who still quaintly believe the constitution means anything anymore.

      Athenians had ostracism for a reason.

  16. Tyrants are bullies, they will try to intimidate or force you into giving them what they want. If you do concede the tyrant wins.

    I’m reminded of an actual free speech thing here many years ago, where the tyrants bullied a group into not exercising their first amendment rights. There was an area, zoned agricultural, where several people had over time bought property and built homes. One day the city council had a surprise vote to dual-zone that whole area ‘agricultural/business’, and they did it because there was a ‘consortium’ that wanted to build ware houses in that area and the ware houses were starting right up against the property lines of these people with these 1 acre plots with their houses on it. Those several residents fought it, there was a court case, and during the court case they also protested the city council (whose action in doing this were illegal by the way) by putting up signs on their own property and showing up at city council meetings to protest it.

    It wasn’t long before city code enforcement started showing up at the homes of these people to ‘enforce’ a very ambiguous ‘ordinance’ that said code enforcement could enter property for the purposes of determining if code violations ‘possibly’ existed. Code enforcement would show up every day, and write a citation for things that did not exist and over time there were several hundred of these as each visit would result in 10 – 20 citations for each resident every day for violations that did not exist. But the problem was each citation had to be responded to in some way, and instead of ‘corrective warnings’ these were citations that meant one had to correct a non-existent issue and then pay a fine or take it to city court and win and if you didn’t the city would have you arrested. Yeah, it was a corrupt city council at the time (who eventually got removed). But when the residents went to city court they would always lose despite their not being any violation actually. Then one day a city council member visited one of the residents and suggested that if they removed their signs at stopped protesting the zoning change and drop the court case that their ‘code violation’ problems would go away. So by now, the legal bills and the constant fines were mounting up, and the residents had no other choice but to just accept it. They had successfully been bullied by these tyrants, by intimidation, into not only dropping their court case but to not exercise their first amendment right but also it let the tyrants win …. for a while because it just so happened one of those residents had a kid in law school who happen to mention this to one of the professors who happen to have also been on the board of a groups of lawyers who took on constitutional rights cases. So after a series of threats from that group of lawyers to the city council the city council reversed course some by saying they would ‘more fully examine’ the issue before letting the re-zoning take effect, and it never did and the ware houses never got built and as a result of the corruption being exposed the entire city council was removed (either by resigning or by legal action) and city judge was forced to resign.

    Tyrants win until they are stopped, tyrants win if you do what they want.

    There was a very stern warning from the founders of our country, its even in the anti-tyrant structure of the U.S. Constitution by it placing limits on government as the check against tyranny that the people are expected to enforce – that warning, collectively paraphrased is ‘do not allow tyrants to remain in power and do not let tyrants win’.

    OK, so some people people say ‘Don’t carry while this is in effect, wait for the courts to work it out, its a trap’ and all sorts of stuff. If you don’t carry that’s up to you. But if you let a tyrant bully or intimidate you into not exercising your inalienable right, if you let others make you paranoid and afraid with their dire warnings of ‘arrest’ and the sort or being ‘targeted’ for future legal action of some sort by law enforcement – the tyranny wins if even for a little while and you surrendered your inalienable right exercise if even for a little while.

    Do not let this tyrant Grisham win, if even for a little while.

    • Much as I hate to say it, this is very, very unlikely.

      Such will require a special session or extraordinary session. The NM legislature is not professionalized, so it doesn’t meet all the time.

      The 2023 session ended in March.

      Democrats control the legislature, holding the state as a “trifecta” at this point. They run the House 44-25 and the Senate 27-15.

      A special session can be called by the governor or a 3/5ths majority of both chambers of the legislature as per the state constitution Art. IV subsection 6. They have to certify to the governor that, in their opinion, an emergency exists in the State and have a special session to deal with it. The governor then has five business days, plus a Saturday as needed, to get that underway. If she fails to do that then an “extraordinary session” can be had by the legislature itself. This dispenses with some rules that applied to “special session”. Such as session is limited to a period of 30 days unless there’s an impeachment to be dispensed with at the 30 day mark.

      Art. IV § 6:

      “Special sessions of the legislature may be called by the governor, but no business shall be transacted except such as relates to the objects specified in this proclamation. Provided, however, that when three-fifths of the members elected to the house of representatives and three-fifths of the members elected to the senate shall have certified to the governor of the state of New Mexico that in their opinion an emergency exists in the affairs of the state of New Mexico, it shall thereupon be the duty of said governor and mandatory upon him, within five days from the receipt of such certificate or certificates, to convene said legislature in extraordinary session for all purposes; and in the event said governor shall, within said time, Sundays excluded, fail or refuse to convene said legislature as aforesaid, then and in that event said legislature may convene itself in extraordinary session, as if convened in regular session, for all purposes, provided that such extraordinary self-convened session shall be limited to a period of thirty days, unless at the expiration of said period, there shall be pending an impeachment trial of some officer of the state government, in which event the legislature shall be authorized to remain in session until such trial shall have been completed.”

      As I’ve said before, inside the confines of New Mexico politics, what she’s doing is actually rather adroit and seems fairly well planned. She’s on her second term, so she’s term limited and the chances she gets impeached and removed are slim to none.

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