New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham thought she was onto something, taking the rhetoric of treating “gun violence” as a public health crisis to its obvious conclusion–mandating citizen disarmament to some degree via executive order.
Instead, she’s now looking at the possibility of impeachment.
It may not be likely to happen, of course, but that’s not stopping the media from engaging in tricks to try and protect her without completely killing their credibility.
Take this example. The headline reads, “Impeachment Bid Targets Democrat Governor Over Gun Laws.”
Yeah, really.
The truth is that the impeachment effort has nothing to do with gun laws. While I oppose every bit of gun control on the books, I’m not interested in creating a culture where people are removed from office simply for passing laws others don’t like. I think we’d find the lack of stability to be problematic, as would we dislike the outcome of lawmakers who refuse to make any laws.
Lujan Grisham is looking at potentially being ousted not because of the laws but because she tried to create gun control by fiat, something she lacked the authority to do.
What’s more, they seem to know that.
Two Republican legislators in New Mexico have filed a resolution to impeach Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham over her emergency orders suspending the right to carry firearms in certain public places.
The legislators accuse the governor of violating the state and federal constitutions and abusing her power.
Lujan Grisham’s spokesperson, Maddy Hayden, criticized the resolution as a political stunt.
Hayden said, “There’s not much to say in direct response to this inane effort” to impeach.
Rep. Stefani Lord, founder of the advocacy group Pro-Gun Women, said, “The point is that she has too much power.”
“We’re just trying to say to her, ‘You have too much power, you’re acting like a dictator. … And we’re going to impeach you,’” she continued.
It remains uncertain whether the resolution will advance to public committee deliberations in the state House, where Democrats outnumber Republicans.
Nowhere in there is Lujan Grisham’s previous efforts to pass gun control laws, her support for laws that did pass, or her support for bills under consideration right now.
No, it’s about her unilaterally deciding that the largest city in the state would be a gun-free zone despite the Bruen decision literally saying you couldn’t do that.
She’s not under fire for supporting laws that other people dislike but for trying to abuse her emergency powers to disarm all law-abiding citizens who set foot in Albuquerque, even as she acknowledged that criminals wouldn’t obey those rules.
A lot of people might be willing to give the publication a pass for the headline since the body of the story is accurate. I won’t.
Something I’ve learned about this business is that the headline is all a lot of people will see. They’ll read that, figure they’ve got the story, and move on. A whole lot of people will share it just on the headline, without ever clicking a link.
I’ve actually seen stories posted on social media have more shares than reads.
They’re putting out a narrative that this is about laws that some legislators dislike and then hiding the facts where they’re less likely to be seen.
This way they can claim they did nothing wrong, that their story presents the facts, all while ignoring how the headline is blatantly misleading.
Now, headlines can be tricky, particularly in the digital era, but there’s no excuse for this kind of “journalism.”
Lujan Grisham isn’t facing impeachment because of laws but because of her illegal actions.
