New Mexico is called the Land of Enchantment. Yet Florida’s Governor is notably disenchanted with the Southwestern state after its Democratic Governor took a stand against guns.
“Just a few months after ending the COVID ‘public health emergency,’ the Governor of New Mexico has declared a new ‘public health emergency’: Guns. She is now asserting the power to infringe on Second Amendment rights by executive fiat. This assertion is not surprising — since 2020, ‘public health’ has become a pretext for depriving citizens of civil liberties and trampling on our Constitutional rights,” Ron DeSantis tweeted Saturday.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Friday a new public health order targeting guns and drugs in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County in the wake of two mass shootings and three juveniles being shot to death in recent weeks, citing threats to people’s “very right to exist.”
“The time for standard measures has passed,” said Grisham. “And 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.”
The Governor press release says her “action plan includes a suspension of open and concealed carry laws in Bernalillo County, temporarily prohibiting the carrying of guns on public property with certain exceptions. Exceptions include for licensed security guards and law enforcement officers. Citizens with permits to carry firearms are free to possess their weapons on private property (such as at a gun range or gun store), provided they transport the firearm in a locked box, use a trigger lock, or some other mechanism that renders the gun incapable of being fired.”
DeSantis has been criticized for Florida’s relaxed attitude toward gun ownership, particularly in light of permitless carry being legalized this year, even during his rare in-state press conferences.
This week in Jacksonville, someone who wasn’t a member of the media charged DeSantis with allowing “weapons to be put in the street,” brandished by “immature and hateful people.”
“You have allowed people to hunt people like me in broad daylight,” the questioner said before he was escorted out of the public event.
The Governor also took criticism for invoking the Second Amendment after Hurricane Idalia in a warning to potential post-storm criminals.
“I’ve seen signs in different people’s yards in the past after these disasters, and I would say it’s probably here, ‘You loot, we shoot.’ You never know what’s behind that door,” DeSantis said. “If you go break into somebody’s house and you’re trying to loot, these are people that are going to be able to defend themselves and their families, so I would not do it.”
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