guns and politics

I got to the Albuquerque City Council chambers a half hour before the sign-up would start for comments on the proposal to urge a state law establishing the Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) Act.  There were already about twenty people ahead of me in the line, but I was still within the thirty commenter limit.  I didn't keep a tally of the speakers.  I think about two-thirds were NRA supporters, though I don't recall any stating that affiliation.

The first commenter was a heavily tattooed drama queen who held up a pocket copy of the Constitution and loudly demanded to know if any of the councilors had read it.  She slammed the booklet on the podium and made a series of derogatory statements about politicians.  That set the tone for many of the subsequent commenters, though none of the others delivered their message with such verve.

There were a lot of shade tree lawyers, along with a couple who professed expertise in police work and terrorism monitoring.  The common threads were claims about Red Flag laws violating various parts of the Bill of Rights and judgments that the proposed legislation would not obtain the desired results -- all the usual NRA talking points with no supporting evidence.

I decided to use my 1.5 minutes to highlight a couple well-established facts; that a substantial majority of Americans support Red Flag laws, and included in that group is a majority of gun owners who also support other common sense gun regulation.  I said I thought the ERPO Act resolution was a small step, but one in the right direction, and I urged the councilors to keep on with their initiative.

The proposal that the city urge passage of a state Red Flag law passed four to two.  One of the two against supporting the recommendation said about six times that she was for "reform", but then said she would not support the recommendation to the State legislature because there was no way to know exactly what the State law would say.  That same pathetic evasion was also cited by the other "no" voting councilor.  Three other councilors did not show their faces at the meeting.

So now New Mexicans will have to wait for 2020 to see what happens with the Red Flag law and other gun control measures.  As is always the case, a lot of momentum toward gun regulation has built up following the latest horrific massacres.  It remains to be seen how much of that momentum can be sustained long enough to force the law makers to take action.

Meanwhile, there are a lot of excellent articles appearing every day on the subject of gun violence and how it might be reduced:

A chill in the air: The problem of teen suicide (Searchlight New Mexico)

Can We Prevent Mass Shootings By Preventing Suicide? (FiveThirtyEight)

Why extreme risk protection orders can make a difference (The NM Political Report)