While we’ve had our guard up against the return of the Branch Covidians, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has shown us a new frontier in the malign uses of public health “emergencies.” Grisham has suspended laws that allow open and concealed carry of firearms in Albuquerque for 30 days after declaring a public health emergency (I’m borrowing the formulation of Jonathan Turley, who explains what it’s all about in this excellent column). The public health order is posted online here.
It might be a stretch to say that if one wasn’t paying particularly close attention, the emergency Covid orders might have had limited plausibility at the outset. Before long it became obvious that they had nothing to do with public health. They were all about expanding the power of government to trample fundamental rights.
In a sense Grisham has done us a service. Even the inattentive should be able to get a clue.
Illegal gun possession does not create a public health emergency. Grisham’s order may reflect a law enforcement emergency with respect to which government failure serves as a predicate for the expansion of government power. Criminal acts do not justify the limitations of our fundamental rights. Beyond its theoretical deficiency, the order is stupid on its face. Will criminals abide by it?
Turley comments on the “emergency” charade:
Democratic leaders have increasingly turned to a claim used successfully during the pandemic in declaring a health emergency to maximize unilateral authority of governors. There have also been calls to declare racism a public health emergency, supported by groups like the American Public Health Association. Transgender programs have also been declared a public health emergency by some groups. The motivation behind many of these calls is not to negate constitutional rights, but the question is whether such declarations allow governors discretion to suspend or curtail individual rights.
The teaching that “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” has been spuriously attributed to Thomas Jefferson. He may not have written it and he have been canceled, but truth of the adage goes marching on even if the vigilance required in this case is only thinking straight.
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