2024 in New Mexico, and more broadly, the United States, brings more proposed legislation to ban guns, no matter what the cost may be. In New Mexico's upcoming 2024 legislative session, Democrats have introduced a series of gun control bills, including HB 137, aimed at what they say is curbing gun violence. The bill in question heavily mirrors a proposed law introduced by Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) in the United States Senate called the Gas-Operated Semi-Automatic Firearms Exclusion Act (GOSAFE) Act. Both bills would ban the sale of all firearms that are gas-operated, with few minor exceptions, and would force existing owners to register them. 

The sponsor of New Mexico's HB 137, Democratic state Rep. Andrea Romero, demonstrated her blasé attitude and lack of understanding on what is and is not constitutional in a statement, when asked about the bill: 

We've been looking really closely at the constitutionality of these gun regulations, and since the 1930s, we've been regulating guns. We know what it is that we can do, and we're being mindful of the fact that it's a certain type, in the way they're engineered that makes them so deadly, which is why we don't want them to be in public circulation in our community. We're mindful that we would never try to take away anyone's constitutional rights, but within reason. We are at an absolute epidemic point of gun violence in our state, and we have to act.

Romero does not know what the government can or cannot do, and she clearly demonstrates that when she says "try not" to take away rights, but also "within reason."  When it comes to someone's Constitutional rights, there is no ambiguity when there is talk of restricting or removing said rights. She also admits that in New Mexico, under the "leadership" of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (D), the state does take away people's rights, but they really "tried" not to. 

The bill, if passed, would effectively ban all semi-automatic rifles and any gas-operated shotgun that holds more than 10 rounds in the magazine. There is no semi-automatic rifle in existence that does not use some sort of gas system to perform the function of loading and unloading the chamber during the firing of the firearm. Whether the rifle uses a direct impingement, piston, or delayed blowback operating system, every single semiautomatic rifle in existence right now, uses a variation of a gas operating system. While some semiautomatic shotguns can use a "recoil" operating system, which uses the recoil of the fired round to cycle the bolt, the rest use a gas operating system like rifles. 

Democrats supporting both pieces of legislation are claiming, hilariously mind you, that gas-operated semiautomatic rifles are more deadly than non-gas-operated rifles. The only reason why they think they are more deadly is because they aren't bolt or lever action rifles, or they aren't muskets or muzzleloaders. Romero said:

These weapons are so deadly to be in circulation, we no longer want them in circulations. So, if you have one today, you can keep it, but in the future, we do not want these in our communities.

However, there is another glaring issue with New Mexico and other states like California, views on what is or is not Constitutional. A perfect example of that was given by Democratic Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, who bragged about how California just "does it anyway."

Now obviously, it should be a problem for any body of government to do that, and to do it so blatantly and proudly as Jones-Sawyer demonstrated. But is a bigger problem than that, because it is done almost every year with almost every state government, along with the Federal government. More times than not, bills are introduced, debated, voted on, passed, and signed, all without one key interegating process; who does the bill harm, who does it help, and is it Constitutional or not?  Laws are passed and forced onto the people without a care in the world if they're on the right side of the Constitution. 

But not this one. No, the New Mexico legislative analysis conducted on the bill said it's going to cost over $450,000 to defend it in court because they know it will absolutely be challenged. And therein lies the problem, the New Mexico state and even Federal governments have continued down this pathetic path, and abdicated their responsibility and role of ensuring a law meets Constitutional muster to the various circuit, appellate, and Supreme Courts, which ensures that they are now more powerful than the legislative branch and can now create law by default. 

A legislative analysis for the New Mexico bill to ban "gas-operated semiauto firearms" anticipates that it will cost over $450,000 to defend in court, while the public defender's office says it's concerned about "potential widespread noncompliance should [it] be enacted": pic.twitter.com/6FbzbWhpr7

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) January 25, 2024

Our courts are severely clogged with lawsuits against legislation that has been passed. Clogged to the point that it takes years before a case against a law is heard, which serves the legislators of the law just fine because they know their laws can be in effect for years before it is heard and by that time, the damage has long been done. That is not the right way to govern, or legislate, but that is how it's done now. And when the courts upend these laws, the legislators that pass them and the governors or presidents that sign them, get to call the courts "activist courts" because they never care about determining if a law meets Constitutional muster. All over social media, we see the likes of California Governor Gavin Newsom, or his AG Rob Bonta, and President Biden or his illustrious VP Harris all melt down and throw temper tantrums when their laws get upended by the courts. 

Both parties are guilty of this, but we see it more from the Democrats because they want to push their far-left agenda any way they can. Only the voters can cure this problem, and we all know how reliable they are. When the voter turnout in the average election is under 60 percent, politicians will never be held accountable as they should be. 100 percent needs to be the norm, and the chances of that happening are probably only going to be when we don't have free and fair elections. So for now, we just have to put our faith in the courts to uphold the Constitution, because the legislators aren't doing a good job.