Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham gun stores closed
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)
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From the Second Amendment Foundation . . .

The Second Amendment Foundation, National Rifle Association and Firearms Policy Coalition today filed a federal lawsuit against New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, challenging her order mandating the closure of lawful retail firearms businesses during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Joining SAF, NRA and FPC are the New Mexico Shooting Sports Association, two businesses and three private citizens. They are represented by attorneys Patrick J. Rogers, Albuquerque; Cody J. Wisniewski, Lakewood, Colo.; Adam Kraut, Sacramento, Calif., and Michael T. Jean, Fairfax, Va. The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico and is known as Aragon v. Grisham.

In addition to Gov. Grisham, also named as a defendant is Kathyleen Kunkel, secretary for the New Mexico Department of Health, both in their official capacities. The Department of Health is also a defendant.

The lawsuit “challenges Defendants’ mandatory shuttering of lawful retail firearms businesses.”

“By arbitrarily, capriciously—and unconstitutionally—targeting those who lawfully sell firearms and ammunition, New Mexico is depriving citizens of their natural and fundamental right to keep and bear arms,” the complaint alleges.

“Gov. Grisham simply can’t suspend the Second Amendment,” stated SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “Of course there is an emergency, but such emergencies do not nullify the Constitution, even temporarily. We cannot allow public officials to put their personal agendas above the rights protected by the Constitution, and that includes the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

“The government has no duty to protect you and coronavirus-related impacts to law enforcement could be significant,” added FPC President Brandon Combs, “so times like now are precisely when people must be able to acquire self-defense tools to defend their lives and homes. We are proud to participate in this important case to defend the People’s right to keep and bear arms against government abuses in New Mexico.”

“Unfortunately,” Adam Kraut, FPC Director of Legal Strategy observed, “we find ourselves having to litigate yet another case where government officials believe that a crisis creates an exception to an enumerated constitutional right. We are happy to join with our friends from various organizations to defend the People of New Mexico’s right to keep and bear arms.”

 

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.

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16 COMMENTS

    • She should be sued personally and required to leave office for breaking the oath she took upon being sworn in. To me it seems like a perjury offense.

      • Ed,

        Absolutely!!! She should be charged with violating her oath of office and sued in civil court for the losses the gun dealers will incur, and for the pain and suffering gun owners experience. I am sending additional $$ to GOA and the 2A Foundation to support the lawsuits they are filing across the country.

  1. No amount of ideological utopia drivel can make anyone overlook the government response to civil unrest in America:

    First to run off.
    “You’re on your own”
    “Give them room to destroy”
    “We will take all weapons”
    Will arrest you for defending yourself from rioters/looters because they know you won’t resist.

    Y’know… if they can’t control civil unrest, what makes them think they’ll do in better during an civil uprising?

  2. My sister and her husband moved to Santa Fe four years ago. She is an artist; he is a retired sales rep for a wine distributor. She wanted to live in an artist community and fell in love with Santa Fe. After three years, they are planning to sell and move back east. Both are strongly conservative, and strongly pro-Trump. My sister tells me they cannot socialize without being chastised and castigated. They try to avoid politics so that they can have a good time, but people know they are conservative and pro-Trump; even when shopping, people harass them. My sister is NOT prone to exageration.

    In Santa Fe, the generous, kind, loving artsy community has apparently decided that diversity of thought will not only be discouraged, it will be punished and persecuted.

    Hate has found a home in Santa Fe.

    • That’s really only Santa Fe and Albuquerque unfortunately. The rest of the State has actual human beings in it except for those two shitholes.

      • One lawsuit at a time, brothers, will bring these libertards down on their knees. Thanks to the NRA, SAF, and Firearms Coalition for helping us out with the unconstitutional shut-down orders by this governor. Unfortunately, suing is the only way to get their attention since power to control everybody is all they want. This governor could give a rats axx about your rights to self-protection.

  3. “Gov. Grisham simply can’t suspend the Second Amendment,” stated SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb.

    Mexico doesn’t have a Second Amendment. Neither does California, New Mexico or any other province of Mexico.

  4. But the Supreme Court has ruled that states can suspend constitutional rights in the interest of the public good. And that supreme court decision has just been cited by the fifth circuit federal appeals court in Texas to support a state abortion ban.

    So it’s clear that the current supreme court supports the suspension of constitutional rights for the good of the society, interesting.

    “A federal district court sided with the abortion providers. The court acknowledged the public health crisis inflicted by COVID-19, but said the Supreme Court had never addressed whether such a circumstance would limit its past abortion holdings.

    “This court will not speculate on whether the Supreme Court included a silent ‘except-in-a-national-emergency clause’ in its previous writings on the issue,” District Court Judge Lee Yeakel, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote. “Only the Supreme Court may restrict the breadth of its rulings.”

    But on Tuesday, a divided panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived the abortion restriction by a 2-1 vote. It had earlier allowed the restriction to be enforced while it considered the matter.

    The 5th Circuit held that the district court’s analysis was “backwards.” Citing the 1905 Supreme Court case Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the court held that all constitutional rights “may be reasonably restricted to combat a public health emergency.”

  5. She is going to loose and she will have to take it in the panties like other governors have had to take it in the shorts,Eff the grabbers.

  6. How can we file a lawsuit to compensate all of the small businesses that have been sidelined and shuttered due to the Governor’s overreaching orders? So many of the big box stores have been allowed to stay open, and have profited hugely, while mom-and-pop stores have had to close and have taken huge losses. This is cronyism in its finest. As a main point of contention, I have not seen any law that allows the Governor to suspend Constitutional Rights, even during a period of emergency. The Governor’s actions are unconstitutional, unjust, and a violation of everything this country has been built upon, and therefore should be held accountable.

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