In an 11 August article in the Albuquerque Journal, it is reported that a subcommittee of the Albuquerque City Council will forward to the full Council a request to ask the Legislature to amend the state constitution to repeal the so-called preemption clause in Article II, Section Six. That part of the constitution currently reads as follows:
"No law shall abridge the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes, but nothing herein shall be held to permit the carrying of concealed weapons. No municipality or county shall regulate, in any way, an incident of the right to keep and bear arms."
The last sentence in the section is the critical one here. It prohibits cities and counties from passing their own firearms laws that would only apply within that city or county, thus ensuring uniform firearms laws all across the state of New Mexico and also ensuring that extremes of firearms laws are less likely to be created. Note that of course a city is able to ban the discharge of firearms for hunting or target shooting within populated places, but cannot independently ban or regulate possession of firearms or ammunition.
So while a strongly pro-gun rural county cannot have more liberal gun laws than the state, a strongly anti-gun locality cannot write highly restrictive law either. Indeed, some on the Albuquerque City Council are chomping on the bit to, as Councilor Pat Davis states, ensure the state constitution is not "...“standing in the way of cities like Albuquerque and others of doing what’s reasonable..." The problem is, what's reasonable to Mr. Davis might not be reasonable to your or me and indeed, can vary from location to location depending on local politics. One might expect cities such as Santa Fe to also support such a move.
In other states, the lack of preemption has resulted in situations where municipalities pass highly restrictive laws. For example, New York City does not honor the rest of the state's pistol permits and in fact, New York City puts huge hurdles in front of those wishing to own firearms of any sort, especially handguns. Similar situations have cropped up in states such as Colorado (Boulder) and in Illinois.
This is alarming for many reasons, a few of which I will mention briefly. One, the bar to amend the New Mexico Constitution is very low: a simple majority of both houses of the Legislature followed by a simple majority of the public. Two, if such an amendment passes (and indeed, the Legislature would be free to rewrite all of Article II Section Six if it so desired and put a new version to the voters), people in some parts of the state could suddenly find themselves becoming lawbreakers even if for their entire lives, they have been safe and law-abiding. You have a fifteen round magazine, a double stack pistol, or a military style rifle? Relinquish it or become a criminal. Or move, I suppose. Three, we are a very sparsely populated state with few major highways. If a city or county passes highly restrictive laws, will a safe passage clause be provided so that citizens can move between locations on our few highways in order to hunt or go to shooting matches? Four, will a municipality have the freedom to not recognize a state concealed carry permit?
We won't know the answers to any of these hypotheticals until they play out, should the constitution be amended. What we do know is that if it does pass, no two cities or counties may have the same laws. We will see confusion and see that some citizens will have fewer rights than others.
The Los Alamos Sportsman's Club and the NRA are following these developments. You should too.
