New Mexico residents gun-shy on gun bills

RIO ARRIBA COUNTY — John Villareal, an electrician whose family has owned ranchland in Alcalde for a century, pops into La Cocina New Mexican restaurant in downtown Española on a recent day to catch up with his cousin — a regular at the restaurant who always sits in the same corner table.

Villareal isn’t shy about how he feels about the gun bills making their way through the Roundhouse.

He said he has called his county commissioner and his state senator to express his worries that the bills would pave the way for the government to take his guns — which he counts by ticking off his fingers.

“Anytime we go camping or we go fishing, you just never know what you’re going to encounter,” Villareal said. “I like to have the option of having (a gun) without any restrictions. If I’m going down the road and I have it and I get pulled over, I don’t want to be questioned about why I have a weapon.”

It’s a common sentiment in Española and Rio Arriba County.

Despite having one of the highest percentages of registered Democrats for counties in New Mexico, Rio Arriba has joined more than 20 counties and municipalities throughout the state in recent weeks in passing resolutions opposing proposed gun legislation. Many have declared themselves a “Second Amendment Sanctuary.”

Gun legislation is being pushed by Democratic lawmakers both here in New Mexico and across the country, emerging as one of the central tenets of the party’s platform.

This year a bill to require background checks on nearly all gun sales, even those done privately, has passed the New Mexico Senate and is moving forward in the House, where a similar bill has already passed. It was sponsored by Sen. Richard Martinez, a Democrat who represents District 5 — which includes much of Rio Arriba County.

Lawmakers have also introduced a bill to allow a judge to order guns removed from someone who presents a serious emergency risk to themselves or others, and another to bar people who have been convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence from owning a gun.

The state has 33 counties, and sheriffs from 29 of them have stood up in opposition to the legislation.

Curry and Roosevelt counties have both passed resolutions opposing new gun laws.

“We felt that our stance was falling on deaf ears, it wasn’t making any momentum and people were not paying attention,” said Cibola County Sheriff Tony Mace, the chairman of the New Mexico Sheriffs’ Association. “So what we decided is let’s get counties to draft a resolution to say ‘Hey, our sheriffs support people’s Second Amendment rights.”

Last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham responded to the sanctuary county movement by saying the background checks are constitutional and law enforcement cannot pick and choose which bills to enforce. She called the sheriffs lobbying against the legislation “rogue sheriffs.”

“Opponents of firearm safety measures can’t debate on the factual merits of these bills, so they turn to hyperbole, falsehood and fear-mongering,” Lujan Grisham wrote on Twitter. “Thus, we now have a few ‘sanctuary’ counties — political posturing & dangerous, cynical pandering.”

In response, Mace and others throughout the state have embraced the label “rogue sheriff,” by plastering it across photos and social media.

Commissions from urban counties, including Bernalillo, Doña Ana and Santa Fe, are not opposing the bills.

Bernalillo County Sheriff Manuel Gonzales has expressed his support for the Second Amendment Sanctuary counties but acknowledged the decision will be up to the commission.

Lonna Atkeson, a political science professor at the University of New Mexico, said guns — like many of the contentious issues at the Legislature — are testing how people identify themselves and how they will vote in the future.

“You have two identities in conflict with one another,” she said. “You have the identity of party and the identity of rural, and those are in conflict with each other with this particular issue.”