{"id":99242,"date":"2024-01-12T19:41:02","date_gmt":"2024-01-13T01:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=99242"},"modified":"2024-01-12T19:41:02","modified_gmt":"2024-01-13T01:41:02","slug":"99242","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=99242","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

NM governor unveils bills that ban assault weapons, raise age to possess a gun<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced support for several bills that she said were aimed at gun violence\u00a0\u2014 banning assault weapons, raising the age to possess a gun and extending the waiting period to take it home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

“We have a gun problem, ladies and gentleman, and we have a public safety problem,\u201d she said Friday , surrounded by public safety officials, law enforcement and the bills’ sponsors. \u201cWe have a responsibility to our children, to families, communities to solve it, and I believe this package goes a long way to do just that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

One bill would ban assault weapons statewide, another would raise the minimum age to buy a gun, from 18 to 21 years old, and extend the waiting period to take one home from three to 14 days.<\/p>\n

The bills were just a few of dozens related to public safety that will come up in the legislative session, which begins Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

At least three of the gun initiatives Lujan Grisham highlighted Friday reflected failed legislation from the Legislature’s last session.<\/strong> House Bill 101, which would have prohibited people from possessing assault weapons; House Bill 100, which would have established a 14-day waiting period for guns; and Senate Bill 116, which would have made it illegal for anyone younger than 21 to purchase an automatic or semi-automatic firearm, all died in committee.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

The current iterations of those initiatives are set to be carried by almost all the same lawmakers who sponsored them last year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Asked why the current versions of the measures would be successful this time around, governor spokeswoman Maddy Hayden said in a statement there\u2019s \u201cmore momentum around public safety than ever, and you can expect a full-court press on every one of these bills to get them across the finish line.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cThis year is seeing a convergence of not only a public that continues to demand action from the (Legislature) on public safety, but also a sense of energy felt after the meaningful results of the concerted efforts of the last few months in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

With respect to the legislation about regulating the possession and sale of assault weapons, Hayden said a language shift in the new proposal to define such firearms in terms of how they deliver bullets made this year\u2019s version stronger than previous versions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In the governor\u2019s public safety agenda, she refers to how assault weapons \u201cfire bullets at extremely high velocity, assault weapons can inflict massive trauma including the piercing of law enforcement body armor.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The gun bills announced Friday came months after Lujan Grisham enacted a public health order to tackle gun violence\u00a0\u2014 declaring it a public health emergency\u00a0\u2014\u00a0following the shooting death of an 11-year-old leaving an Albuquerque Isotopes baseball game in September.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The governor initially included a ban on publicly carrying firearms in Bernalillo County, but that was trimmed back \u2014 to only include parks and playgrounds \u2014 after a federal judge issued an order blocking the ban.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Republicans were quick to respond to the bills announced Friday morning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Sen. Greg Baca, R-Belen, the Senate Republican leader,\u00a0said the governor “took a hyper-partisan turn with the announcement of several anti-Second Amendment measures targeting New Mexico gun owners who only want to protect themselves and their families.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cLet\u2019s be clear \u2014 if the Governor and other Democrats were half as hard on criminals as they are on law-abiding citizens, our communities would already be much safer,” Baca said in a statement. “Enough with the false solutions. Let\u2019s enforce the laws we have, keep dangerous criminals behind bars and give law enforcement the tools they need to do their jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NM governor unveils bills that ban assault weapons, raise age to possess a gun Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced support for several bills that she said were aimed at gun violence\u00a0\u2014 banning assault weapons, raising the age to possess a gun and extending the waiting period to take it home. “We have a gun problem, … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,50,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enemies-foreign-domestic","category-goobermint","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=99242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99243,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99242\/revisions\/99243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=99242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=99242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}