New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan-Grisham (MLG) replaced our Second Amendment rights with her emergency regulations, penalizing the public possession of a firearm in Bernalillo County. MLG wanted us to believe that we are safer with her regulations, not our right to bear arms. But are we?
What do fewer rights and more laws and regulations look like here in America? We need to look no further than American history.
African Americans were property in the Southern States, and Native Americans were Wards of the American Government. Native and African Americans had no Rights guaranteed by the Constitution but had abundant laws and regulations.
Not even Gov. Michelle Lujan-Grisham and her fellow Santa Fe Democrats could argue Native and African Americans were and are better off with Less Freedom and More Regulations.
The March to More Freedom
The price to end slavery was 330,000 dead Northerner soldiers, and 275,000 Northern Soldiers were wounded in action. Thirty-seven thousand Northern wives lost their husbands, and ninety thousand Northern children were orphaned. The nation lost one of its greatest presidents, Republican President Abram Lincoln, who was assassinated.
The price to end the Wardship of the Native Americans was paid by the Native Americans themselves. No wars were waged, only suffering marked in time as the “Long Walk” or the “Trail of Tears.” (On a separate note, ninety percent of the Native American population died from disease transported on a Spanish ship with an enslaved African from Cuba. This is from a Public Broadcast System article titled “The Story of … Smallpox – and other Deadly Eurasian Germs.”)
Not even Governor Michelle Lujan-Grisham and her fellow Santa Fe Democrats could argue the price for Freedom was not worth the cost.
The Continuation of the Fight for Freedom.
African Americans were recognized as equal citizens in 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. Sixty-four years later, Native Americans were granted citizenship when Republican President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship.
However, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Southern States Democrats enacted “Jim Crow Laws” to enforce racial segregation and relegate African Americans to second-class citizenship. Jim Crow Laws could not have existed without the suspension of African American Rights, starting with suspending their Second Amendment Rights.
In 1964, Democrat Lyndon Johnson and Republican members of Congress came together to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. A year later, the Voting Rights Act ended discriminatory voting practices.
Does Governor Michelle Lujan-Grisham and her fellow Santa Fe Democrats understand how their actions could be viewed as no different than that of Southern State Democrats a hundred and fifty years ago?
Today’s Fight for Freedom
It is not just MLG and her Santa Fe Democrats attacking our Rights. Albuquerque, Mayor Tim Keller, and the City Council suspended the Second Amendment Rights for those residents who walked onto our City Community Centers, Multi-Generational Centers, and Senior Centers.
In July 2020, an African American organized a Black New Mexico Movement protest at the Civic Plaza in Albuquerque. He was arrested for an open-carried sidearm.
In April 2021, Deyontae Williams, an African American, attended a Proud Boys event at the Albuquerque Civic Plaza. He was legally carrying a sidearm and was arrested by the Albuquerque Police Department.
In one year, Mayor Keller and the City Council settled three unlawful actions against African American citizens exercising their Second Amendment Rights.
Tomorrow’s Fight for Freedom
New Mexicans gave up many of their freedoms in exchange for Governor Lujan-Grisham's solution to the COVID-19 Epidemic Crisis. We have since discovered her solutions were a mirage, and the consequences of the solution were far worse than the COVID-19 virus.
Governor Lujan-Grisham, with her Santa Fe Democrats and Mayor Keller with the City Council, has attempted to manipulate New Mexicans into believing sacrificing their Right to Bear Arms would guarantee the safety of themselves and their families.
Native and African Americans will never give up their Right to Bear Arms again, just as we should never give up our Right to Bear Arms lest we become property or wards of state.
Mick Rich is host of the public affairs broadcast “To the Point with Mick Rich,” which will air statewide in New Mexico on KCHF-TV and in Albuquerque on 96.9FM / 700AM.
