While the New Mexico Legislature will not convene for its 60-day Regular Session until January 15, anti-gun lawmakers who support Bloomberg’s radical gun control agenda have already started pre-filing unprecedented attacks on your Second Amendment rights. The bill introduction deadline is February 14 and we will continue to update you as more firearm-related bills are filed. Here’s what New Mexico gun owners are facing so far in the Roundhouse:
First on the list are two bills regarding "universal" background checks similar to those which legislators rejected in 2017 – House Bill 8, sponsored by Rep. Debra Sarinana, and its counterpart Senate Bill 8, sponsored by Senators Richard Martinez and Peter Wirth. These measures would ban all private firearms sales between law-abiding individuals. Gun owners will be forced to pay undetermined fees and obtain government approval before selling firearms to family members, friends, neighbors and co-workers, or fellow hunters, competitive shooters and gun club members. Such proposals will have no impact on crime and are unenforceable without gun registration. House Bill 40, by Representative Miguel Garcia, would require criminal records checks on private firearms sales at gun shows – a favorite target of the gun control crowd.
House Bill 83, extreme risk protection order or “red flag” legislation, sponsored by Representative Damon Ely, would authorize the seizure of firearms and ammunition from individuals without due process. Unchallenged statements made by a petitioner before a judge, alleging that someone is a danger to themselves or others in an ex parte proceeding -- prior to any formal court hearing at which the respondent can be represented by counsel and present counter evidence -- would be sufficient for law enforcement to enter that person's home and confiscate their private property.
House Bill 130, sponsored by Rep. Linda Trujillo, proposes to make gun owners criminally and civilly liable if a child gains unsupervised access to an unsecured firearm. New Mexico already has a first degree felony child abuse statute on the books to hold adults accountable for putting children's lives or health at risk in any manner. The tools exist to charge and prosecute parents or guardians in appropriate cases. Education is the key to protecting gun owners and their kids, not a state mandate on how one stores a firearm in his or her home.
Don't sit idly by and watch your freedoms disappear. Sign up as an NRA Frontlines volunteer and get at least three fellow gun owners to also sign up to receive timely legislative alerts on firearm-related bills during this upcoming session. Make plans to attend committee hearings on these bills at the Roundhouse when NRA-ILA notifies you of the place and location. And contact your state lawmakers before and during session urging them to OPPOSE these measures.
A large number of freshman State House members have not taken office yet and do not currently have contact information at the Roundhouse. The make-up of the State Senate basically remains the same as last session. Please begin contacting your State Senators and urge them to OPPOSE bills that ban private gun sales between law-abiding individuals, OPPOSE red flag legislation that allows for the confiscation of firearms without due process and to OPPOSE proposals that duplicate the current child abuse statute to create specific, lesser offenses involving access to firearms in the home. Make sure you put bill numbers in the subject line of your emails.
Please also contact the office of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, who has expressed support for all of these measures, and politely and respectfully let her know that you OPPOSE them. Make sure you put bill numbers in the subject line of your emails.
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