‘Busiest day I’ve had in months’: Guns flying off shelves in Albuquerque after gov’s anti-2A move

It would appear that New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s emergency order banning the carrying of firearms in Alburquerque has had an unintended consequence: Sales in the city’s gun stores are booming.

ABQ Guns owner Arnie Gallegos told The Epoch Times, “Today was the busiest day I’ve had in months.”

“I’ve been getting a lot of people who have never come into a gun shop before who are rightfully concerned about their freedoms,” Gallegos added. “A lot of people are saying, ‘I can’t rely on the police anymore, and I need to be able to protect myself.’”

As BizPac Review reported, last week, Lujan Grisham declared that firearms could not be carried in Albuquerque and the surrounding Bernalillo County for a minimum of at least 30 days in response to several recent shootings that left children as young as five and eleven dead.

“The recent shooting deaths of a thirteen-year-old girl on July 28, a five-year-old girl on August 14, and an eleven-year-old boy on September 6, as well as two mass shootings this year spurred the governor to declare gun violence a public health emergency on Thursday,” her office said in a press release.

According to the order, “no person, other than a law enforcement officer or licensed security officer, shall possess a firearm … either openly or concealed, within cities or counties averaging 1,000 or more violent crimes per 100,000 residents per year since 2021.”

The move sparked immediate backlash, even from those within her own party.

Many were convinced that hell had indeed frozen over when gun control advocates California Rep. Ted Lieu (D) and activist David Hogg criticized the blatantly unconstitutional move.

 

“I support gun safety laws. However, this order from the Governor of New Mexico violates the U.S. Constitution,” Lieu posted following the decree. “No state in the union can suspend the federal Constitution. There is no such thing as a public health emergency exception to the U.S. Constitution.”

“I support gun safety,” Hogg said, “but there is no such thing as a state public health emergency exception to the U.S. Constitution.”

“People are upset,” Walt Bracken, owner of the Albuquerque gun shop BMC Tactical, told The Epoch Times. “There is an attitude that our governor isn’t respecting our rights.”

He, too, has seen an increase in sales, as has a clerk at the city’s Right to Bear Arms gun shop.

“We have seen a definite jump in traffic because people are nervous, and rightfully so, when they think their right to purchase a gun won’t be around in the near future,” the clerk, who wished to remain anonymous, said. “There is definitely a joke in the gun community that the policies of the left are the greatest salesman of all time.”

On Wednesday, Lujan Grisham’s quest to crush the Bill of Rights was dealt another blow when U.S. District Judge for the District of New Mexico David Urias — a Biden appointee — declared her order unconstitutional and temporarily blocked the ban.

The ruling came a day after New Mexico’s Democratic Attorney General Raul Torrez refused to defend the order.

“Though I recognize my statutory obligation as New Mexico’s chief legal officer to defend state officials when they are sued in their official capacity, my duty to uphold and defend constitutional rights of every citizen takes precedence,” Torrez said. “Simply put, I do not believe that the Emergency Order will have any meaningful impact on public safety but, more importantly, I do not believe it passes constitutional muster.”

But Gallegos believes the governor’s move was only the beginning, should Democrats stay in power.

“This was a litmus test to see if they could get away with it,” the store owner warned.

“I tell everyone, if you want to preserve the Second Amendment, don’t vote Democrat,” Gallegos said. “The message is clear: don’t let anyone take your freedoms in exchange for the promise of safety because, in the end, you’ll have neither.”