How enforceable are New Mexico’s new gun laws?
New Mexico’s brand new gun laws took effect bright and early Monday morning. The state now requires background checks on nearly all gun sales, including private sales.
New Mexico Governor Lujan Grisham signed the bill into law this past March.
“We all have a constitutional right to be safe in our homes and communities,” Lujan Grisham told reporters shortly after signing the bill, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
However, employees with Custom Cartridge Company in Las Cruces question how much immediate effect the new laws will have in New Mexico.
“The law itself is largely meaningless,” said Emerson Gades, who told ABC-7 he has almost thirty years of experience selling guns. “There is no firearm registration in the state of New Mexico. You don’t have to really prove where you got the firearm if you are in possession of it.”
A spokeswoman with the Doa Ana County Sheriff’s Office likened the law with checking whether all drivers have licenses.
“You don’t know unless you pull someone over,” said Kelly Jameson. “It’s difficult at best.”
Governor Lujan Grisham ran for office on a platform of improving gun safety. She was praised by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords for demonstrating “a strong commitment to fighting for the passage of gun violence prevention policies,” according to her website.
Gades told ABC-7 that the law is largely unenforceable because there is no national or state gun registry.
“If the gun was bought new, there is a record of it being purchased,” Gades said. “However, those records stay at the gun shop. They’re only accessed by the feds in the event a gun is found in a crime.”
