The anti-gun bill working its way through the New Mexico legislature, which could be called an assault weapon ban but is actually much worse, is a terrible idea, yet also the kind of thing gun control advocates have said they wanted for years now.
But now, at least one anti-gunner has some thoughts on the bill that boil down to seeing it as a bad idea.
The bill in question doesn't just ban scary-looking AR-15s. It's really more of a semi-automatic rifle ban, which is going to have a farther reach than a replay of the 1996 federal law.
And that creates some reasons for the head of one of the state's leading gun control groups to have concerns.
The fate of Senate Bill 17, which would ban the sale of “extremely dangerous weapons” and impose an array of security requirements on gun dealers to curb firearms trafficking, is unknown. As of Friday, it had yet to be scheduled for a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee.
Miranda Viscoli, executive director of New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, said the organization supports the sponsors’ goals, but the legislation is “legally vulnerable and likely to backfire.”
“By passing a ban this broad, we are handing the U.S. Supreme Court a perfect opportunity to deliver a definitive, nationwide ruling against state-level firearm restrictions,” she said. “Beyond the legal risk, the bill’s immediate effect will likely be a surge in panic buying of the exact weapons this bill is trying to limit.”
The only thing she said here that I don't agree with is supporting the sponsor's goals. Viscoli is right that it'll likely get tossed by the courts, especially after the Supreme Court's NYSRPA vs Bruen decision. That found that for a gun control law to be ruled constitutional, it had to have some kind of analog from around the time of either the Second Amendment's ratification, or when the 14th Amendment incorporated the Bill of Rights as also a state-level restriction.
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I seriously don't see how such an analog exists, and the closest things one might find aren't remotely like banning an entire category of firearms simply because some are misused by bad actors.
Then there's the panic buying, which might not be the best term for it, but is still ultimately what will happen. People want something that's about to be banned, so they buy up, even if they might never have bought one in the first place.
The 1996 assault weapon restrictions are why the AR-15 became the most popular long gun model in the nation. Before then, most people bought hunting rifles, self-defense handguns and shotguns. Modern sporting rifles were only owned by a small number of folks, relatively speaking, though they were available to anyone.
Then the feds tried to ban them, and suddenly, everyone wanted one.
Since they turned out to be great guns, people just kept buying them.
But if you leave well enough alone, people who are mostly just lukewarm about getting such a gun will never really get around to it. Create a date when the guns will be prohibited, though, and suddenly there's a sense of urgency that prompts purchases that might otherwise have never happened.
For once, an anti-gunner is talking a bit of sense, even if her reasons for doing it are different than my own.
