Gov.’s gun safety action promotes the right to live

Since Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham responded to New Mexico’s gun crisis by implementing a limited ban on gun carrying in public places, U.S. House Republicans introduced a resolution to condemn her, she has been attacked by politicians on both sides, New Mexico Republicans called for her impeachment and a judge temporarily halted her order. Lost in the furor is that the governor is right, and she should be applauded for her bold action to save lives.

Let’s not forget that the governor acted after children were gunned down; the ban was temporary and it focused on one county where gun violence has become a clear and present threat to public safety. Protecting safety — the right of people to live — is the most important job of the governor and other public officials.

It’s also worth reminding that for the first 220 years of American history, there would be little question that the governor’s action would be deemed constitutional. The Second Amendment was properly understood as only protecting participation in the “well-regulated militias” the Framers referenced front and center in the text. In the 1800s, New Mexico, like most states, generally banned gun carrying. In 1872, the Supreme Court of Texas found the argument that there is a right to carry guns into any “place where ladies and gentlemen are congregated together” was “little short of ridiculous.” A century later, former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger called the notion that there is a Constitutional impediment to gun safety policies a “fraud.”

Even where rights are constitutionally protected, courts routinely recognize that their exercise must give way to public safety concerns; that’s why the First Amendment doesn’t allow you to shout “fire” in a crowded theater. Governments always can protect the fundamental right to live. Properly understood, the Second Amendment should provide no more rights than the Navajo Nation Bill of Rights, which only protects “the right to keep and bear arms” for “peaceful purposes” and “in a manner which does not breach or threaten the peace.”

In recent years, though, the Supreme Court has subordinated the right to live by elevating a right to bear arms into a super right. In the 2008 Heller decision, the court held that the Second Amendment is not limited to the militia the framers referenced, but protects a right to handguns for self-defense the Framers did not mention.

In last year’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen decision, the Supreme Court required that gun laws have historical analogues to be upheld, then struck down a law that regulated public gun carrying despite centuries of similar restrictions. The framers of the Second Amendment would be shocked that a provision intended to protect “well-regulated” state militias could be used to strike down state regulation and support unregulated private gun use.

Even under these wildly incorrect decisions, the case can be made that governments retain broad police power to protect the rights of citizens to live in support of the governor’s emergency public safety action.

Regardless of whether she prevails in court, Gov. Lujan Grisham advanced a vital conversation about the proper balance between the right to live and the right to carry deadly weapons. Hopefully the New Mexico Legislature — and the U.S. Congress — will take note and enact the stronger gun safety laws we need. And by using her authority to protect children, the governor has set a courageous example for other governors, and sent a powerful message to the Supreme Court to reinstate the right that our nation’s Founders declared first — the right to live.