Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Careful, NM Democrats, For Many New Mexicans Gun Control is Not Public Policy:
It Represents the Violation of a Moral Imperative
"I'll Give You My Gun When you Pry It From My Cold Dead Hands"

The creation of sanctuary cities, via city council resolution, to offer some protection for migrants in danger of deportation, is not so much a statement of public policy or politics--although it is certainly political--as it is a moral, primordial, pronouncement.  It represents the exercise of moral conviction in opposition to the state when fundamental conflict between the two exists.

The push in rural counties of New Mexico to pass Second Amendment Sanctuary County laws is identical, a moral imperative stemming from a deep, ultimately healthy, mistrust of government.  It runs a lot deeper than the deep and often sordid pockets of the NRA,  now being investigated for mischief during the 2016 elections.  It predates the NRA by thousands of years.

Here's how Liberals (or "Progressives") might understand this:

In a world in which a few months ago our President (elected under several circumstances that make you wonder about its essential fairness and legitimacy)  ordered the forcible, and, for many, permanent, separation of thousands of children from their families; and in a world in which presidents of both political parties--with the support of an increasingly partisan and compliant Supreme Court--daily help themselves to more and more arbitrary executive power, can you imagine, within plausible scenarios, being on the wrong end of the guys with stun guns, Kevlar, infrared scopes, tear gas, and lethal bullets pointed at you?  If a judge you knew nothing about in such a world, elected on a partisan ballot, signed an order allowing the state to deprive you of the right to have a gun because your mental stability has been questioned--would you willingly comply because the legal framework that permitted this to happen was well intentioned?

Many people in New Mexico, Conservatives, Liberals, Native Americans, Mugwumps, ranchers, Tijerina followers, Libertarians, and contrarians of all stripes, have already answered this question.  Although the issue has a partisan base, it is not partisan.  It is a deep-seated, existential, issue that is beyond the reach of the New Mexico legislature or, indeed, the law.

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