Back in business. Yay!
The Associated Press is reporting that New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, has suspended legal open and concealed carry of firearms across Albuquerque and the surrounding county for at least 30 days.
The firearms suspension, classified as an emergency public health order, applies to open and concealed carry in most public places, from city sidewalks to urban recreational parks. The restriction is tied to a threshold for violent crime rates currently only met by the metropolitan Albuquerque. Police and licensed security guards are exempt from the temporary ban.
Cue the screaming and outrage from the Right.
Gov. Lujan Grisham cited several recent incidents of gun violence for her decision.
Lujan Grisham referenced several recent shootings in Albuquerque in issuing the order. Among them was a suspected road rage shooting Wednesday outside a minor league baseball stadium that killed 11-year-old Froyland Villegas and critically wounded a woman as their vehicle was peppered with bullets while people left the game.
Last month, 5-year-old Galilea Samaniego was fatally shot while asleep in a motor home. Four teens entered the mobile home community in two stolen vehicles early on Aug. 13 and opened fire on the trailer, according to police. The girl was struck in the head and later died at a hospital.
The governor also cited an August shooting death in Taos County of 13-year-old Amber Archuleta. A 14-year-old boy shot and killed the girl with his father’s gun while they were at his home, authorities said.
“When New Mexicans are afraid to be in crowds, to take their kids to school, to leave a baseball game — when their very right to exist is threatened by the prospect of violence at every turn — something is very wrong,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement.
This was a gutsy move on the governor’s part. I don’t know that gun violence has ever been declared an official public health threat, although the American Medical Association said it was back in 2016. And the violence has gotten worse since. It will be interesting to see if there is less gun violence in Albuquerque over the thirty days. I expect that this will be challenged in court somewhere.
Jonathan Turley, still challenging Alan Dershowitz for the irritating right-wing attorney gadfly award, predicts the governor will be hit with a massive backlash, and that the suspension will increase support for open and concealed carry. I don’t have a feel for politics in New Mexico.
But what if there is no backlash? There is copious polling telling us that a majority of Americans really, truly want more restrictions on guns, not less. What if the governor pays no political penalties at all? Maybe more politicians will get some guts. Maybe the nation will no longer be hostage to the gun fetishists. This is worth watching;
In other news: This is a story about Elon Musk that would be getting more attention.
Overnight we finally got confirmation of something that has long been suspected or hinted at but which none of the players had an interest in confirming. Last September Musk either cut off or refused to activate his Starlink satellite service near the Crimean coast during a surprise Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian Navy at anchor at its Sevastopol naval port.
Ukraine has made extensive use of naval drones. But it at least sounds like this was supposed to be a massed attack that would have done extensive damage to the Russian Navy and the naval port itself and thus seriously degraded Russia’s ability to launch missile attacks against Ukraine. In other words, it doesn’t sound like this was just any attack, though the details are sketchy.
On its face you might say, they’re Musk’s satellites and he’s in charge of who gets to use them and how. But of course it’s not that simple. It’s a good illustration of how Musk’s economic power has crept into domains that are more like the power of a state.
It’s worth reading the whole post, by Josh Marshall at TPM.
Agreed the move to block casual carry in public spaces is a good move. Also likely to be struck down by the USSC. But linking the decision to avoidable fatalities makes the decision palatable to most voters. Eventually, either we expand the court or we replace a few conservatives as they age out. But on the issues of abortion and gun control, there seems to be support for human rights. IMO, voters will support expanding the court.
Elon Musk is a walking argument for a death tax that ends dynastic wealth.
Moonbat pointed out the Colorado suit has potential. It's a suit IN the state against the Secretary of State demanding Trump not be on the ballot because the federal Constitution (Fourteenth Amendment) makes Trump ineligible. This differs from the FL case that was recently tossed because the plaintiff did not have standing, (That suit was filed against Trump in federal court.)
Trump is screaming about the Colorado suit, which lends credence to it.
If the suit succeeds, it will be appealed to the USSC. My guess is that the high court will NOT rule on whether Trump is ineligible to hold office. They will make the narrow decision based on whether the Secretary of State of Colorado has the authority to remove Trump. This is no favor to the GOP – officials or voters – because no one knows if the High Court might remove Trump if he won in the General. And they deserve to know early enough to select some other fascist.
What's the possible backlash? More mass shootings? More rightwingers brandishing firearms? More Republicans threatening violence and civil war? More Unconstitutional Sheriff's declaring they will not follow the law?
This is a good move and if it pushes the issue all the way back to the Supremacist Court, make those 6 sinister fvcks declare MAGIC WORDS in Constitution Trump your children's right to live.
If you read the article about the gun ban in ABQ, it's tragic that the governor couldn't get buy-in from the local police chief. She apparently expects the state cops to enforce it, instead of the locals. The local cops are either gun nuts themselves or are terrified or unwilling to confront the locals who wield guns. What a mess. It's tragic that these people can't compromise over such a limited ban: a single county for a mere 30 days.
It'll be interesting to see how this is litigated. It's not a total ban, just a response to a public health threat. Kudos to the governor for offering more than Thoughts and Prayers™.
Heather Cox Richardson had something to say about Elon Musk. She prefaced her article with all the international trade diplomacy Biden and Harris are undertaking, which involves spending $ in overseas countries to develop markets and banking. She pivots back to the US:
How much suffering has techno-twit and boy billionaire Musk caused, undermining the US government, all with the blessing of free market Republicans?
David French in an opinion piece in the NYT today closed with:
Here Musk raised ire using X, formerly known as Twitter. The unintended consequences of privatization may turn into our biggest national threat. We really don't need any bigger ones.
Musk has blessing of Putin.
The good news is most of the planet sees him for what he is and no longer the pretend wonder boy.
Now can we get our own satellites and infra structure up please?
Tired of launch pad experiments instead of great engineering.
Boo hoo gun owners. Read a book. Get a new hobby. Guns are made for one purpose.