New Mexico is currently considering a bill to allow persons to carry concealed in establishments that serve beer and wine, but not in bars that serve hard liquor.  This legislation is one more example of misguided attempts by law makers to suck up to groups like the National Rifle Association, which presumably is a group that says it is out to protect the rights of gun owners.  Actually they do not really do that and neither does this Law, nor is it legal under the Constitution.  It is also a blatant attempt by lawmakers to pander to gun owners who are good family people and who want to have the right to defend their children and wives in any regular public context.  I cannot argue against any person’s right to carry concealed as a Constitutionalist.  Furthermore I believe this bill would discriminate in particular against disabled people.

There are three levels of Law in the United States Courts.  First there was Natural Law which was granted to us, as we believe, by our Creator and it cannot be circumvented by either Constitutional Law or Statutory Law.  Natural Law, as we inherited it before we were a nation, was the foundational cornerstone of our Common Law, which today we call Constitutional Law.  Since these Laws were primordial in their nature they could not be left out of a system of Law envisioned by the founders who were about the business of creating our Legal System when they crafted the Constitution.  Natural Law premise falls under the purview of Title I Courts, which is the final litmus of cases that work their way through the legal process from the level of the States or Statutory Law.  The presumption of the guarantee of rights under the Law is based on the idea that the States can pass their own laws, as long as they do not circumvent the basic tenants of Federal Law and that level of the Law,  in the end, has to respect the cornerstone of Natural Law.

The Law to Carry Concealed in New Mexico was originally conceived around the notions of weapons carry methods inherited historically from the old west.  Most cowboys carried their weapons openly because it was a demonstration of male ego.  A man was proud to be proficient with his weapon and saw it as a way of demanding respect from others.  True, it was a lawless place and there was a need to make order out of mayhem, but a lot of our presumptions of what gun ownership is all about is pretty infantile.  Many of the shootings in bars and gambling establishments were done with concealed derringers, so the hiding of weapons came to be known as the mark of an evil doer or a coward.  In todays polite society none of these silly notions should be used to craft law with.  New Mexico’s gun rule became “open carry”, because of these facts.

When concealed carry first came in I believed it was a violation of Constitutional Law.  Politicians were basically trying to make concealment legal if the person was not a previous felon and went through certain training.  However, that was in fact, a contravention of Constitutionally guaranteed rights we already possessed.  The Constitution clearly does not state when, where, how or why a weapon may be carried nor does it allow for any authority to qualify that right other than the citizen in question.  That is why a man’s weapon was always returned to him after he served his sentence.   Therefore, the states have no right to create any level of statutory law that violates that guarantee.  In fact that is the Law today even though the right to carry concealed law exists on the Statutory Level.

Case in Point:

In New Mexico’s  Socorro County there was a man who defended himself and his home with a stolen 22 pistol from a man trying to run an RV through his house.  He turned out to be a two time felon who already had two previous convictions for gun altercations where several of the victims had been killed.  He went so far as to try and conceal the body of the victim behind his house in a pit where he covered the body with lime and was about to bury it when discovered.  He was arrested and spent two years in prison while his case was working its way through the court.  By the time the case got to Title I Courts he was declared not guilty, because the Court ruled that under Natural Law he could not be (even as a two time felon facing his 3rd strike) deprived of his right to defend his life, even if the weapon he used was stolen.  Rightly so.  He was absolved of the charge and today lives quietly in the country.

Therefore, I believe the legislators and the people would be better served if they simply added concealed carry to the already legal open carry, with no other qualification.  In fact that is already the Law as well but the Public has to go through a gauntlet of legal hurdles before they can make that point in court.  That can be very costly and actually ruin you financially and make you an inadvertent victim of the Law itself.

Case in Point:

In New Mexico a gun is not considered “concealed” even though it is not in plain sight if it is in the act of being transported and it is in an unloaded (not ready to fire) state.  That legal point was added to our Gun Laws to allow owners to carry their weapons into a shooting range, or your house from your car, or for that matter anywhere where you were in the process of transporting the weapon.  The Law does not say it has to be in a box, or a paper sack, or a brief-case, or your vest pocket.  You are allowed to carry any way you want while in your car and your home as they are your personal domain.  And ,in fact, while transporting your weapon in a not ready to fire condition.

Finally, I believe the Law to be profoundly discriminatory to the disabled.  A disabled person is not in a strong well body.  A gun can easily be wrested from them if it is in plain sight and gun training basically presumes that a victim is on a physical par with his opponent, which is clearly not the case.  Nor do many of the concepts they teach you apply to a disabled person, such as choosing a good vantage point to fire from, or making sure you have a backstop so you don’t shoot someone else beyond your target by mistake, or learning how to protect your weapon from being taken from you and on and on...you get my point.  A disabled person already has a Constitutional right to carry PERIOD.  I can cite a case in point where a law was crafted to allow the disabled to carry concealed, but I believe the importance of the point is that crafters of a conceal carry law were trying to re-grant this right back to the disabled after wrongfully re-describing that right under Statutory Law to begin with.  It happened in San Diego County, California in the mid 80’s when Sheriff John Duffy proposed a law granting the disabled the right to carry concealed and the Law was passed.

I believe the Legislature should just allow a weapon to be carried concealed or in the open and not pass feel good legislation that circumvents and ensnarls our rights in a mess of legal meanderings.  Serve the People and don’t waste our money on silliness or forcing us to defend ourselves as honest law abiding people from the Law itself !

New Mexico Legislature Crafts New Convoluted Discriminatory Gun Legislation