New Mexico gun owners already find themselves under plenty of attack with Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham recently instituting a 30-day ban on concealed and open carry of firearms in Albuquerque and surrounding Bernalillo County. Now anti-gun state legislators are piling on, pre-filing two measures that would further infringe on New Mexico Citizens’ Second Amendment rights.
State Sen. Linda Lopez, a Democrat representing Albuquerque, has pre-filed a bill that would place a new 11% excise tax on guns, firearm precursor parts, suppressors and ammo. While the text of the measure is not yet available, it’s clear that implementation of the idea would be unconstitutional under the Bruen standard.
Funds raised from the tax would be earmarked for the crime victims reparation fund and a fund for services to children and families involved in abuse or neglect situations. Ironically, lawful gun owners would be footing the bill to help solve problems they didn’t cause.
As most Truth About Guns readers likely already know, what such a measure does is make it more expensive for citizens to practice their constitutional rights. Consequently, it would hurt lower income New Mexicans the worst, many of whom live in dangerous areas where a self-defense firearm is needed most.
Additionally, lawmakers have pre-filed a measure that would put a 14-day waiting period on all firearm purchases. According to NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action: “This measure will add nothing to the existing FBI background check process and will only delay your ability to exercise your Second Amendment right to purchase firearms to defend yourself, your family and your property.”
The measure was pre-filed by state Sen. Joseph Cervantes, a Las Cruces Democrat. Unfortunately for New Mexico gun owners and future gun owners, if passed the 14-day waiting period would be the longest firearms purchase waiting period in the country.
What anti-gun lawmakers apparently don’t care about in this case is that there is absolutely no evidence that waiting periods reduce violent crime. What they do accomplish, however, is making it impossible for someone in an urgent situation—a battered spouse, for example—to be able to quickly acquire a firearm for self-defense.
John Lott, head of the Crime Prevention Research Center, explains it best. In a brief filed a few years back in a case involving California’s waiting period, Lott wrote: “Despite assertions that the benefits from waiting periods and background checks are obvious, the complete lack of empirical studies to support those claims is stark. No evidence is offered that either of these laws reduce violent crime, nor that they reduce overall suicide rates.”
