New Mexico gun house owners just lately dodged an enormous bullet when the legislative session adjourned earlier than gun-ban advocates may achieve approval for a sweeping ban on so-called “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines.” The failure of Senate Invoice 17 was cheered by pro-gun advocates and jeered by gun-ban supporters.
As background, SB 17 would have banned widespread gas-operated semi-automatic firearms, .50-caliber rifles just about by no means utilized in crimes and firearm magazines holding greater than 10 rounds underneath the guise of labeling all of them “extraordinarily harmful weapons.” The measure had handed the state Senate by a 21-17 vote, with all Republican senators and three Democrats voting in opposition to the invoice, however stalled within the Home.
Now, the Nationwide Capturing Sports activities Basis (NSSF), the firearm business commerce affiliation, is warning gun house owners within the Land of Enchantment that gun-ban advocates shall be coming at them once more onerous and quick within the close to future.
In a information merchandise posted on the NSSF web site, Larry Keane wrote that whereas the battle was received, the battle for Second Modification freedom in New Mexico is simply starting.
“For gun house owners, retailers and producers, the takeaway is obvious,” Keane wrote. “This yr was a victory, however the coverage push didn’t disappear. It’s going to more than likely be again with revised language and the identical underlying goal: prohibit entry to generally owned firearms and customary capability magazines by regulating the lawful market and redefining atypical merchandise as uniquely ‘harmful.’”
As Keane identified, supporters of S.B. 17 offered it as a invoice to crack down on unlawful gun trafficking.
“In actuality, it mixed two longstanding gun management targets in a single automobile: increasing state-level mandates on federally licensed firearm retailers and prohibiting the sale of constitutionally protected firearms and magazines by a newly created ‘extraordinarily harmful weapons’ definition,” he wrote.
Whereas the invoice, if handed, would have been a catastrophe for small firearm retailers, it was equally punitive to lawful gun house owners.
“For New Mexico gun house owners, the invoice’s ‘extraordinarily harmful weapons’ language was essentially the most consequential coverage selection,” Keane wrote. “It was aimed straight at banning the long run sale of all customary capability magazines and semi-automatic centerfire rifles that use removable magazines. That isn’t a focused enforcement strategy centered on legal misuse. It’s a coverage designed to cut back lawful entry by proscribing what may be offered by lawful channels.”
In the end, Keane wrote that gun-ban advocates’ speaking factors about “assault weapons,” “weapons of battle” and “crime weapons” had been designed to mislead the general public.
“When lawmakers depend on shaky narratives, the coverage tends to overlook the goal,” Keane concluded. “As an alternative of specializing in violent offenders and the networks that feed them, the burden is shifted to lawful residents and lawful commerce.
“What the state doesn’t want is one other spherical of bans and bureaucratic traps that fall hardest on the individuals who already comply with the legislation.”
