New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham made a name for herself in 2023. She decided to follow the COVID-19 playbook of using a public health emergency to create authoritarian rules by fiat rather than through an act of the legislature.

Not that democratic tyranny is all that better, mind you, but at least then people feel like there was a say.

Lujan Grisham declared that any carrying of a firearm in Albuquerque was illegal, regardless of whether someone had a permit or not.

She got a lot of pushback for that.

Now, she’s at least trying to push the legislature to pass gun control.

New Mexico’s governor presented a broad suite of legislative proposals on gun control and enhanced penalties for violent crime Friday, vowing to forge new pathways through the complex landscape of constitutional law in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to expand gun rights.

The announcements by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a second-term Democrat, puts public safety at the forefront of a 30-day legislative session that starts Tuesday. The fast-paced session is limited to budget negotiations — and initiatives chosen by the governor.

“The constitutionality questions are beginning to be very complicated in the arena of gun violence,” Lujan Grisham said. “We are going to continue this effort, following what is going on around the country. … There will be others who will follow in our footsteps, creating their own public safety corridors, which in effect also make New Mexicans safer.”

Germane proposals will include a ban on guns at public parks and playgrounds with felony penalties for violations — expanding a hallmark of the governor’s ongoing declaration of a public health emergency related to gun violence and drug abuse.

Grisham also wants a 14-day waiting period on all gun purchases–and remember, New Mexico already has universal background checks, so it’ll be all lawful gun purchases–and barring those age 18-20 from buying semi-automatic rifles and shotguns.

Also included is a law that would open the door on lawsuits against gun manufacturers for one third-parties do with the firearms they make.

None of which will make New Mexico one bit safer.

Especially since the people who are causing problems in New Mexico aren’t going to be deterred by these laws, a fact that Lujan Grisham seems to know. After all, she told journalists that she didn’t expect criminals to follow her carry ban. She knows the bad guys won’t follow the rules.

However, just like with her directive, she’s facing pushback.

New Mexico Republicans are accusing Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of undermining the Second Amendment after the Democrat introduced gun control proposals on Friday.

Lujan Grisham announced that a 30-day state legislative session slated to begin Tuesday that will include “the largest and most comprehensive public safety package in our state’s history.”

…

State Sen. Greg Baca, the Republican minority floor leader, accused the two-term governor of taking “a hyper-partisan turn.”

“Senate Republicans are eager to join the governor in tackling New Mexico’s crime epidemic, and to that end, we have introduced a number of commonsense solutions,” Baca said in a release.

“Unfortunately, today’s press conference took a hyper-partisan turn with the announcement of several anti-2nd Amendment measures targeting New Mexico gun owners who only want to protect themselves and their families,” he added.

In another statement, Steve Pearce, chairman of the Republican Party of New Mexico, called the Democrats’ proposals “another egregious attack on New Mexicans’ Second Amendment rights.”

The truth is that Lujan Grisham has tipped her hand. We know what she wants to do, she was just prevented from doing it. At least, we know what she figured she could get away with under the circumstances.

I suspect she actually wants a whole lot more, she just knows it’ll never happen.

So if Lujan Grisham starts trying to say she’s only wanting a few “common sense” measures, we know that’s complete and total BS. We’ve seen what she tried to do when she thought she had sufficient authority to do it.

She is not a friend of the Second Amendment or gun owners in any way, shape, or form and she has absolutely no respect for the Second Amendment.

That’s likely to play a factor, too.

New Mexico hasn’t been as quick to adopt gun control as a lot of other Democrat-controlled states. Part of that is that it’s still a western state where guns have been a family tradition for a whole lot of people. Couple that with the high crime we see in Albuquerque and a lot of people aren’t going to be interested in giving up their guns.

That hasn’t made Lujan Grisham happy.

My hope is that she continues to be disappointed. The people of New Mexico have rights and their governor has made it clear she has no respect for them. They need to start stepping up and demanding their lawmakers leave those rights alone.