Please continue to contact your representative and urge them to oppose HB114, lawfare against gun stores, HB27, Red Flag expansion, HB129, the House waiting period law, HB127, “under 21 no gun,” and HB137, banning most semiautomatic firearms. Also contact your senator and urge them to oppose SB69. Drafts are below.
On Saturday, February 3rd, at 10:00 AM, outside the Roundhouse, NMSSA will be holding a rally to support our rights. We encourage you to take a day trip up to Santa Fe and show up to advocate for your rights! There is free underground parking at the Roundhouse and plentiful cheap parking at the REI underground garage, which is under a 10 minute walk away. If you have any questions about the rally, please refer to their website here.
HB27 would expand the state “Red Flag” or ERPO law in several troubling ways. Additions to the list of reporting parties mean law enforcement and any health care professional would be able to file for an ERPO. Courts are limited by a mandatory minimum order. Search warrants are issuable on an ongoing and repeatable basis to enforce orders. Law enforcement gains the authority to dispose of seized property in a manner similar to other asset forfeiture laws. Pending a vote on the House floor.
HB114 is intended as lawfare to drive gun stores out of the state, much the same way changes to medical malpractice in recent years law ran off doctors. The definitions are so broad that anyone building a firearm at home is defined as a “firearm industry member” and the firearm they make as a “firearms product” under the bill. A private and public cause of action would be created against “firearms industry members” that created real harm or a very broadly defined “public nuisance” through their business or manufacturing practices. The idea seems to be able to file endless lawsuits that businesses would need to defend or to simply render them uninsurable. Pending a vote on the House floor.
HB127 would ban anyone under the age of 21 from owning or possessing almost all semiautomatic firearms – no grandfather clause, no recourse. Exceptions exist for law enforcement, the military, security guards, and guides – ordinary citizens can pound sand. Pending a vote on the House floor.
HB129 would create a 14 day waiting period on all firearms sales, with no exceptions for ordinary citizens. Pending a vote on the House floor.
HB137 is an “Assault Weapons Ban” even more onerous than that in Illinois, modeled on Sen. Heinrich’s failed GOSAFE act. The bill would ban and/or require registration of almost every semiautomatic rifle, many semiautomatic shotguns, and many semiautomatic handguns, including all striker fired handguns as currently written. Restricted firearms couldn’t be carried for self defense and, if registered, would be merely range toys. Pending a vote on the House floor.
HB144 would create a formal state Office of Gun Violence Prevention – a government agency to turn tax dollars into antigun propaganda. It allows collaboration with NGOs, creating the ability to funnel state money directly to antigun groups. Pending in its second committee in the House.
SB5 would create new gun-free zones and would expand the list of places carry is not allowed to include polling places. There is no exception for concealed carry licensees. Passed the Senate, pending committee assignment in the House.
SB69 would create a 14 day waiting period on all firearms sales, with an exception for concealed carry licensees. Pending a vote on the Senate floor.
SB90 would create an 11% excise tax on everything firearms related. Pending committee assignment in the Senate.
SB204 would mirror parts of the Governor’s failed public health order and would ban the carry of firearms in parks and playgrounds. Pending in its first committee in the Senate.
SJR12 would amend the state constitution to remove preemption, allowing a patchwork of municipal and county gun control laws to come into effect. Pending in its first committee in the Senate.
HB114 – OPPOSE
Representative,
This bill seeks to drive gun stores out of the state much the same way changes to medical malpractice laws ran off doctors.
The definitions, first, are so broad that anyone building a firearm at home, which is perfectly legal, is defined as a “firearm industry member” and the firearm they make as a “firearms product” under the bill. The sponsor should at a minimum amend the bill so that an ordinary citizen who has a firearm stolen out of their vehicle cannot be sued under this bill.
The $5,000 penalty is immaterial in the face of the likely costs created by the private cause of action this bill intends to manifest. In fact, actual harm is not required to sue – only “likely harm!” While I’m not sure that this is a first in American jurisprudence, it would certainly be at least an extreme outlier, and would open up firearms retailers in the state to a flood of lawsuits. The penalty in and of itself will not be the blunt policy implement used to drive those retailers out of business. The cost of defending the suits, one far in excess of $5,000 per occurrence, will do the job.
The sponsor misunderstood in the previous committee the legality of what she called “ghost guns,” commonly referred to as privately made firearms. Privately made and unserialized firearms are perfectly legal to possess in New Mexico and, indeed, in the vast majority of the country.
This bill is a pernicious attempt at lawfare to gut the access of New Mexicans to the tools they need to exercise their right to self defense. I hope you will recognize it for what it is and prevent it from advancing.
HB27 – OPPOSE
Representative,
The solution to a mistake is never to double down on it. I was deeply troubled by the initial passage of the law creating Extreme Risk Protection Orders (the “Red Flag” law) in our state, and its attempted expansion this session revives and strengthens my concerns. The impact of the bill on civil liberties generally would be enough to give me pause, but more worrying is the precedent set then and now possibly enlarged for the use of the full power of the government against an individual not because of any alleged crime they committed but because of someone’s belief that they may, perhaps, commit one in future.
I won’t go into the many issues with the existing law here, and, instead, will focus on the new ones HB27 would create.
With an order being issued, police would gain sweeping and repeatable authority to search the person’s property. The acquisition of a search warrant in this case would be a minor obstacle at best. The potential for abuse, either by law enforcement seeking a legally dubious shortcut to a search warrant that might otherwise elude them or by a bad actor using the justice system to harass another person through repeated police invasions into their home and life, cannot be overstated.
The removal of discretion from courts is likewise inexcusable. Section 4B(3), mandating that a court will order the person to relinquish firearms, cannot be complied with in the case of a mistake – one all too easy to make in a game of probable cause telephone where the respondent may or may not actually have a gun. If they cannot produce a gun to relinquish, the next step for a court will, necessarily, be to hold the person in contempt and throw them in jail until they produce one. A Kafkatrap of this nature being built into a law already so disrespectful of civil liberties is at odds with our shared notions of justice.
Finally, the additions in this bill entice law enforcement into misconduct by incentivizing the nonreturn of any seized firearms. Asset forfeiture laws like the one this bill intends to create, where police at all stages have the presumption of rectitude and force of the state behind them, are notoriously misused across the country. The presence of such a temptation to corruption in HB27 is an insult atop the injury to due process rights the existing law creates.
HB 129 – OPPOSE
Representative,
HB129 will endanger victims of domestic violence and do nothing to prevent criminal access to firearms.
A waiting period delays the ability of those who have a sudden need for a defensive firearm, such as women fleeing an abusive relationship, to protect themselves. The thought of an abused person counting down the days until they can have an effective tool to protect themselves hoping their abuser or stalker doesn’t attack in the meantime is horrifying.
A waiting period will similarly fail to prevent criminals from accessing and using firearms. Would-be mass shooters or murderers will wait for two weeks, use the intervening time to further plan, then commit their crimes. Alternatively, criminals of all stripes will simply steal weapons. Stolen weapons make up the vast majority of firearms in the hands of criminals and a waiting period will not stop that from happening.
We’ve heard the sponsor say last year if this bill saves one life from suicide it will be worth it. I submit to you that if this bill costs the life of one victim of domestic violence who can’t get the tools to protect herself, it will be an indictment of the legislature.
As Dr. King famously said, a right delayed is a right denied, and self-defense is a human right. I encourage you to reject this bill and protect victims of domestic violence.
SB69 – OPPOSE
Senator,
SB69 will endanger victims of domestic violence and do nothing to prevent criminal access to firearms.
A waiting period delays the ability of those who have a sudden need for a defensive firearm, such as women fleeing an abusive relationship, to protect themselves. The thought of an abused person counting down the days until they can have an effective tool to protect themselves hoping their abuser or stalker doesn’t attack in the meantime is horrifying.
A waiting period will similarly fail to prevent criminals from accessing and using firearms. Would-be mass shooters or murderers will wait for two weeks, use the intervening time to further plan, then commit their crimes. Alternatively, criminals of all stripes will simply steal weapons. Stolen weapons make up the vast majority of firearms in the hands of criminals and a waiting period will not stop that from happening.
SB69 varies from Representative Romero’s HB129, a nearly identical bill in its effect, by the inclusion of a provision exempting licensed concealed carriers. Representative Romero repeatedly shot down amendments to that effect in the House last year as unfriendly, but it’s here in this bill. Is that inserted to make the bill seem palatable in committee and on the floor, but be thrown away in reconciliation negotiations?
As Dr. King famously said, a right delayed is a right denied, and self-defense is a human right. I encourage you to reject this bill and protect victims of domestic violence.
HB127 – OPPOSE
Representative,
HB127 is a mistake.
It does not prescribe a remedy for adults ages 18-20 who already possess a firearm regulated by the bill. These are adults who bought these items, items they can at this time lawfully possess, and use them to hunt, protect livestock on family farms and ranches, sport shoot, and protect themselves. What would these women and men do with the firearms they already own – some of the most common in this state and country?
There are listed a number of exceptions where an adult under 21 could use one of these firearms. All of those seem to rely on someone else holding onto the firearm. Should a 19 year old victim of domestic violence have to choose between being able to protect herself in her apartment and becoming a criminal?
Similar laws in other states are being rapidly challenged and failing in court. Spending time lawmaking in this regard seems, in the current legal climate, to be set up to fail. Challenges to similar laws are having success in New York and California, and have recently overcome similar laws in Tennessee, Texas, and other states. After the legislative session started here in New Mexico, Lara v. Evanchick was decided in the 3rd Circuit in favor of the young adult plaintiffs about the same issue! If the government could not succeed in court on the same arguments the sponsors of this bill last year advanced in a circuit including New Jersey and Delaware, it has no hope of doing so here. I encourage you not to waste taxpayer money in passing, enforcing, and defending this bill in court, only for it to be quickly overcome.
HB137 – OPPOSE
Representative,
Copying failed federal legislation is hardly a good starting point for public policy in our state.
This bill, in the words of the interim Courts, Corrections, and Justice Committee, is a waste of time. When Senator Cervantes and Representative Chandler discussed the kind of bills that had no chance of surviving their respective committees in a post-Bruen world, let alone judicial review, HB137 would have been a prime example.
To be clear, this bill flies in the face of every single iota of Supreme Court jurisprudence ever issued on the Second Amendment. The severability clause is useless as no section of the bill has any chance of surviving judicial review. The Governor, despite her passion on the issue, is plainly wasting your time and the time of the legislature as a whole by advancing this bill.
Beyond the already fatal failings of HB137, I am uncertain whether the sponsors of this bill actually understand its contents. The bill, as written, would ban almost all semiautomatic rifles, a number of semiautomatic shotguns, and would seem to ban a number of semiautomatic handguns. Regarding handguns, blowback operated and striker fired semiautomatic handguns would be banned and recoil-operated single or double action handguns would not under the current language. The difference between these categories of handgun is deeply technical and I worry that the sponsors would be unable to explain even that tiny piece of the bill to the committee in a correct and digestible manner – much less the remainder.
Please hold the sponsors of HB137 accountable for the failings of the legislation they are carrying when they come before your committee.
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