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It appears the Left may no longer feel the need to cloak its gun control measures with even a pretense of legal imprimatur. In their zeal to restrict the ability of law-abiding citizens to carry a firearm for personal protection, some top Democrat public officials now are mandating new gun control policies without even a fig leaf of constitutional legitimacy.
Late last week, for example, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s Administration declared that no person, other than police or licensed security officers, could lawfully possess a firearm anywhere in public within the state’s largest city – Albuquerque – or in the surrounding county – Bernalillo. This blanket restriction applied also to “state property” located anywhere within New Mexico’s 121,591 square mile jurisdiction. The precise extent of “state property,” other than schools and parks, is left undefined.
Unlike recent gun control policies announced by governors of other Democrat-led states such as New York’s Kathy Hochul, which have been at least presented as responses to last year’s Second Amendment-affirming Bruen decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, and clothed with a façade of legal respectability, Lujan Grisham’s action offered no such pretense.
Her Administration’s new draconian measures – already being challenged in federal court – have been presented as an “action plan” to “do more” to stop criminal gun violence and rampant illicit drug usage plaguing the state. To Lujan Grisham, blatantly imposing her anti-gun will on the citizens over whom she maintains colorable power, is an appropriate (if nonsensical) way to spur a “debate” about gun control.
The announced premises on which these highly restrictive measures are based is a pair of executive orders signed by Lujan Grisham last Thursday and Friday, declaring that “drug abuse” and “gun violence” are “emergencies” of such magnitude and urgency that the Second Amendment guarantee protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens to possess firearms for self-defense, is of secondary importance (if that).
While the actual language in each of the Governor’s two executive orders declaring drug abuse and gun violence to constitute “emergencies” would appear to limit their reach only to October 6, 2023, in the very same documents both of the “emergencies” are deemed to be of “unknown duration”; in other words, indefinite.
Adding to this concern, the September 8th “Public Health Emergency Order” setting forth the actual restrictions on firearms possession by New Mexico citizens, explicitly would not expire on October 6th, but would “remain in effect for the duration of the public health emergencies declared in Executive Orders 2023-130 (“gun violence”) and 2023-132 (“drug abuse”).
By cleverly having New Mexico Secretary of Health Patrick Allen issue the operative and restrictive “action plan,” rather than include such onerous provisions in her own, more general “executive orders,” Lujan Grisham may be attempting to insert additional vagueness into the just-announced gun control policy, and also to try and insulate herself from legal accountability.
The bottom line in all this, however, is that we have a Governor who is so clueless about how the real world operates, that she has concluded the best way “to drastically reduce the number of violent incidents and fentanyl-related deaths in New Mexico,” is to make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to protect themselves, their families, and their communities against gun violence and drug traffickers.
It would be bad enough for the citizens of New Mexico were it only their Governor’s lack of common sense in such regard that impacts them. After all, her announced measures reflect a frame of mind that has manifested itself for decades in policies proposed and implemented by the gun control movement.
Sadly, that lack of common sense exhibited by Lujan Grisham and her minions now is made far worse because it is buttressed by the notion that “inherent constitutional police power” is an appropriate tool by which to take away a constitutionally guaranteed right of the citizenry.
The co-president of New Mexico’s organization designed “to Prevent Gun Violence,” Miranda Viscoli, echoed such perspective, concluding that if voiding an explicit state and federal constitutional guarantee “saves [but] one life,” it is an acceptable price to pay.
In this warped world view, no individual liberty could ever be considered safe from the degree of vacuity and constitutional disdain now being exhibited by gun control zealots such as Michelle Lujan Grisham.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
It has become easy to poke fun at Canada’s Gen-X Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. From his incessant warbling about Climate Catastrophe to his bedrock antagonism to firearms, Trudeau personifies Woke-ism more than any other leader of a major nation. It is his Liberal government’s obsession with the LGBTQ phenomenon, however, that takes the cultural cake.
At the beginning of this month, for example, Trudeau’s Global Affairs Canada, a counterpart to our country’s State Department, issued its latest “travel advisory” for its citizens to be wary of travelling to the United States. Among the myriad dangers for which Canadian visitors to the United States are urged to prepare (including volcanoes, earthquakes, wild fires, mass shootings, yellow fever, and rabies), is the “danger” they face because their neighbor to the south has become exceptionally hostile to “LGBTQ people.”
Of particular concern to Trudeau’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrysti Freeland, is the fact that some jurisdictions in the United States have passed legislation limiting “drag shows.” Freeland’s office also singled out for specific criticism the fact that certain American states have “restrict[ed] the transgender community from access to gender affirming care.”
Although Canada has published a general advisory for LGBTQ matters at least since early this year, the most recent advisory warning about LGBTQ hostility being prevalent in the United States, appears to be the first time Ottawa has specifically flagged our country in this way.
The Global Affairs department did not cite any statistics on how many visitors from Trudeau’s country actually have attended or plan to attend drag shows in the United States, or how many, if any, of its visiting citizens might otherwise have sought access to “gender affirming care” while visiting America. Nonetheless, the advisory cautioned visitors to carefully check the “laws and policies” of jurisdictions to be visited before venturing across the border.
A review of Canada’s official positioning on LGBTQ issues reveals an even more complex and extensive inclusionary framework than commonly used here in the United States.
For example, the basic gender nomenclature government policy in Canada is officially deemed to be “2SLGBTQI+” rather than our culture’s more constrained “LGBTQ.”
Unfamiliar as I am with this longer acronym, I discovered that the “2S” prefix is used to identify “a person whose gender identity, spiritual identity and/or sexual orientation comprises both male and female spirits.” Apparently, at least in Canada, such two-spirit sexual orientation is “traditional to many Indigenous cultures.” Learn something new every day. (The “I” stands for “Intersex,” with an explanation that is at once ambiguous and all-encompassing, and ultimately meaningless.)
The Canadian gender identity bureaucracy includes a lengthy and downright confusing glossary of applicable terms, including “SOGI” (“Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity”), “SOGIE” (“Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression”), and “SOGIESC” (“Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression and Sex Characteristics”). It is a complex world, indeed.
In addition to the now-commonly employed terms such as “Cisgender,” “Questioning” (which, according to the official government glossary, can be an indefinite state of existence), and “Pansexual,” our northern neighbor pays homage to an individual “who lacks romantic attraction or interest in romantic expression” – identifying such person as “Aromantic.” Similarly, for the Canadian government it is critical to distinguish a person who is “sexually attracted to two or more genders” (“Bisexual”) from one who is “romantically attracted to two or more genders” (“Biromantic”).
The Trudeau government’s fixation on LGBTQ matters, as reflected in these official edicts — including the travel advisory warning against travel to the United States simply because some states have passed laws reflecting concern that gender-altering medical procedures can be undertaken without parental consent or even knowledge — is but the latest manifestation of what many in Canada see as an “incompetent” and “unserious” administration led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In this assessment, I agree.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
In the early years of the last century, as our country was flexing its new-found muscle as a major industrial power, Latin America and the Caribbean served as a primary arena where presidents including Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson showcased our military might.
Now, many 2024 GOP presidential wannabes appear eager to resurrect what would be a far more dangerous version of the early 20th Century’s “gunboat diplomacy” toward Mexico.
This predisposition was displayed vividly during the first Republican primary debate on August 23rd, when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared proudly that “on day one” he would send American troops into Mexico to strike suspected cartel-run fentanyl labs.
While it was DeSantis’ debate rhetoric that forced the question of U.S. military action against drug labs inside Mexico to the fore, the notion has been percolating on the back burner for several years.
During his presidency, Donald Trump apparently was so intrigued by the idea of striking facilities across our southern border, that in 2020 he reportedly requested that his then-Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, provide him a plan for launching “some Patriot missiles [to] take out the labs.”
Thankfully, such plans were never consummated, but there remain many in the GOP who today openly support such moves, up to and including bills for the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against targets inside Mexico.
Not all of the GOP’s 2024 hopefuls are as hawkish as DeSantis, but most have placed themselves in the same proactive camp as the Floridian. Vivek Ramaswamy is on record declaring he would send in American troops not necessarily on day one, but certainly in his “first six months.” Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is only slightly more nuanced, stating that if the Mexican president fails to take down the fentanyl cartels, “we [will] do it.”
Such talk, while perhaps to be expected in a multi-candidate GOP primary, reflects a dangerous naivety on the part of those advocating that we take unilateral military action against our southern neighbor.
Aside from the clear violations of international law that such moves would precipitate, there are practical concerns as well; for one thing, Mexico happens to be our country’s largest trading partner – to the tune of some $263 billion in the first four months of this year alone.
The comparison that frequently accompanies Republican calls for unilateral military action against fentanyl labs in Mexico — that such facilities and those that direct them are “terrorists” akin to Osama bin Laden or Qasem Soleimani, both of whom were killed by U.S. military operations — is inapt. Islamic terrorists such as these were not engaged in producing a product that found ready buyers and users within the United States, which is the central problem in attempting to deal with today’s fentanyl crisis that kills 150 users every day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The far more accurate comparison would be the policy pursued by the United States in Colombia during the 1990s and early 2000s to combat cocaine that was flooding U.S. markets, culminating in “Plan Colombia” launched officially in 1999. Debates still rage over the success of this multi-billion dollar policy, but an obvious difference between it and what Republicans now are proposing for Mexico, is that Plan Colombia was developed and executed with the full concurrence of the Colombian government.
Some of the Republicans pressing for unilateral military action against Mexico might have read longingly of the times early in the 20th Century when the United States sent troops under the command of General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing chasing Pancho Villa around the Mexico countryside in 1916-17; or in 1914 when American Naval and Marine forces briefly occupied the Mexican city of Veracruz. However, in both of these episodes, there were at least arguable actions by Mexico or Mexican-led forces that precipitated and justified U.S. military retaliation.
Far more important is the fact that we live in a much different and more complex world, especially as between the United States and Mexico, than 100 years ago. Shallow proposals about lobbing a few missiles into our southern neighbor or sending some Navy SEALS or Special Ops units to destroy what we believe are fentanyl labs, would have massive and negative repercussions on many levels.
Glib talk about unilateral military action against Mexico should be called out and denounced by individuals far more responsible than those mouthing such naïve proposals.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
Knee-jerk responses by government officials and legislators following incidents in which individuals have been killed by police can cause lasting harm to law-abiding citizens. One of these dangerous policies is something called the “Driving Equity Act,” which is now the law in Philadelphia.
The Driving Equity Act, known also as the “Driving Equality Act,” is an overreaction to isolated incidents of alleged police misconduct, and reflects a troubling trend going back nearly a decade.
For example, following the 2014 death of Michael Brown during a confrontation with police in Ferguson, Missouri, the U.S. Justice Department launched a drive against a number of local police departments that resulted in “consent decrees” – mandatory edicts that made it demonstrably more difficult for those departments to carry out their mission of protecting the public.
Several years later, the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers sparked a nationwide backlash against law enforcement generally which led to policies that reduced or defunded law enforcement agencies, causing problems that resonate still today.
Early this year in Memphis, Tennessee, members of a “special” police unit beat Tyre Nichols to death, a tragedy that revived calls for state and local governments to defund and disband specialized anti-crime units.
Often camouflaged as “restorative justice” or “reimagined policing,” legislative and executive actions to curtail police funding and powers usually are premised on the notion that traditional police powers, including traffic stops, are inherently racially biased and thus have been abused as tools to target members of racial minorities, especially Black men. It is not, however, as if there are not ways to deal with such abuses.
At the federal level, and in every state and municipality across the country, there are regulations as well as civil and criminal laws available with which to hold accountable and punish police officers who violate a person’s civil rights. The conviction and lengthy prison sentence handed down against the Minneapolis police officer whose actions caused the death of George Floyd is the clearest example.
Holding individual officers accountable for unlawfully harming or killing an individual, however, takes time and hard work by investigators and prosecuting officials. Many government officials, especially those in liberal jurisdictions or those beholden to progressive supporters, find it easier and more politically rewarding to paint with a broader brush.
Responding to police misconduct incidents by characterizing an entire police unit, or the whole department as racist, to then justify new “progressive” policies to rein in such abuses, appears the solution of choice for many local and state legislators and executives.
Tossing aside long-standing law enforcement authorities rather than tackling specific incidents of police misbehavior, reflects the adage of throwing the baby out with the bathwater — leaving the law-abiding public at greater risk than were a more focused, incident-based solution implemented.
There is no better example of this endangering policy than the so-called Driving Equity (or “Equality”) Act signed into municipal law by Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney in late 2021.
The law took effect in March 2022 and prohibits city police from stopping vehicles for a number of alleged violations, including driving with an expired registration sticker or operating a vehicle with a missing headlight or taillight. These violations have been used for decades by police departments across the country to protect against unsafe drivers or vehicles endangering the public.
Certainly there have been incidents in which such traffic stops have served as a pretext for a stop not truly warranted, but the laws themselves are sound and do enable police to protect against unsafe vehicles, and at times lead to arrests for far more serious crimes (including murder).
No longer is this the case in Philadelphia (and perhaps soon in Memphis), thanks to Philadelphia Councilmember Isiah Thomas, who sponsored the Driving Equity Act simply because he saw “a history of oppression and institutional racism” in the city’s police department, predicated also on a previous incident in a different city involving a police shooting of a detained driver.
For Councilman Thomas and Mayor Kenney, thus handcuffing the police responsible for protecting the citizens of a major American city, is justified if it results in “reimagining” police behavior that will “reduce the likelihood of negative interactions between police officers and Black drivers.”
Police organizations including Philadelphia’s Fraternal Order of Police (which has challenged, thus far unsuccessfully, the Driving Equity Act), common sense, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration analysis of traffic fatality rates on U.S. roadways resulting from limits on police enforcement powers, paint a far more sobering picture of such feel-good policies like Philadelphia’s.
Liberals in charge of “blue cities,” however, would rather traffic fatalities and injuries continue to rise rather than allow police to continue using tried-and-true methods to keep roadways and drivers safe for the rest of us.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
©2022 Liberty Guard, Inc. All rights reserved.
Designed and Developed by Media Bridge LLC