Our first legislative session of 2024 is known as the governor’s call, which is normally about budgets and spending.
In addition to a 9.9% inrease in the governor’s proposed spending, she is pushing for more gun control laws and not enough funding for crime control.
The joint interim Courts Corrections and Justice Committee has endorsed a 14-day waiting period on all firearm purchases, despite a buyer passing the federal background check, which is generally approved within minutes of applying.
The waiting period bill failed last year as being a restriction of Second Amendment rights to own and possess a firearm.
According to our state and federal Constitutions, such right is not to be infringed. However, that has not stopped Senator Joseph Cervantes (D-Las Cruces) from filing a similar bill in this session. Andrea Romero (D-HD46) has indicated she will sponsor pretty much the same bill she sponsored last session, which also failed to pass. This year’s attempt is said to be a similar-state-version of Senator Martin Heinrich’s GOSAFE gun and magazine ban. On the federal level, Senator Heinrich’s bill would prohibit the manufacture, sale, possession or transfer of any center fire rifle capable of accepting a magazine of more than ten rounds and includes all semi-automatic rifles.
Yes, criminals often use guns to commit crimes and they do not obey gun control laws. Those laws will only affect solid citizens who legally own and carry guns for sport and self-protection.
According to the governor’s website, gun violence is up in New Mexico over the national average, but gun violence is normally caused by criminals and the mentally incompetent.
To address the real issue of crime, would it not stand to reason that existing laws should be enforced, police agencies adequately funded to arrest and jail criminals?
I recently interviewed officials with several municipal police agencies and sheriff’s departments in New Mexico. They face many challenges, but without exception, they identified the primary reason for most crimes to be the availability and use of illegal drugs, mainly fentanyl.
In Rio Arriba County, there is no sheriff’s patrol after midnight, due to a lack of funding for personnel. They also have an equipment shortage. Albuquerque PD is running at a one-third police presence and Santa Fe County is also short of commissioned officers. Why? Inadequate funding.
Now that the governor’s FY24 budget is public, we see she has asked for $35 million for law enforcement recruitment, which is to be shared with corrections and $40 million for homeless programs.
She has also asked for $5 million for her seven-member Commission on Organized Crime. Yes, we have organized crime and all seven members are employed in law enforcement. Will the $5 million pay for studies, trips or enforcement? When the state is rolling in surplus, why is there so little funding for law enforcement? Every law enforcement agency told me wages in New Mexico simply do not entice officers to live and work here.
Our legislators need to amend the mistakes in our constitution which lead to no cash bonds and the catch and release revolving door which allows judges to put criminals back on the street, with little fear of punishment.
There is also the issue of funding treatment courts, now known as the Department for Therapeutic Justice. Drug related offenders need rehabilitation, which is correctional as is punishment. Without it, the addicted will likely become repeat offenders.
How about school-based programs on the dangers of drugs, with peers testifying to classrooms about the mistakes they made. The old program, D.A.R.E. has been replaced by “Keepin’ it REAL” which is focused on making good decisions.
A 17-year-old gunman in Perry, Iowa has just shot and killed a sixth grader and wounded five others, before killing himself. These mass shootings, whether at schools, churches or shopping centers are heart-rending beyond belief and make the news as examples of gun violence that must be stopped. I agree.
While these tragedies make the headlines, they are a small portion of overall crimes of gun violence and result from a different pathology.
Without exception, the mass shooters have all demonstrated some form of mental illness, including extreme hatred for various groups. Many of them are deemed depressed adolescents searching for recognition.
Passing more gun control laws will not bring an end to this pathological causes. The intent of red-flag laws is to keep a mentally impaired individual from buying or possessing a gun, but without proper and timely enforcement, the laws are feckless.
We all need to identify the multitude of sociological issues leading to crime and causes of mental illness, which could include poverty, broken homes, childhood neglect and abuse.
While there may be some sharing of causes, we must separate the causes of mass shootings from other more numerous causes of gun violence and property crime.
Real solutions are complex and often inadequately identified by social services and politicians who tend to take the easy way out by proposing more restrictive laws instead of addressing the causes. Proposed restrictions on semi-autos and magazine capacity completely ignore those causes.
These types of proposed laws tend to lead a segment of society into believing the restrictions are incremental moves toward restricting firearms altogether.
Requiring someone to be 21 to buy a handgun may sound reasonable, yet they are deemed mature enough to vote and serve in the military.
Even though you have passed a federal background check, a waiting period to take possession of a purchased firearm may sound reasonable, unless you have just been physically threatened or are a recent victim of domestic violence and fear for your life.
We need to tell our legislators to get serious about crime prevention, increase funding to our police and quit playing progressive politics with more misguided laws.
Tom Wright is a Santa Fe writer and an investor in El Rito Media, LLC, owner of The Rio Grande Sun and Artesia Daily Press.