New Mexico Democrats seek new gun restrictions, enforcement

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Responses from public officers in New Mexico to the killing of 19 kids and two lecturers by a lone gunman at an elementary college in Uvalde, Texas, are falling alongside partisan strains in terms of proposals to enhance public security and regulating entry to weapons.

Democratic candidates for the state’s high legislation enforcement job say New Mexico wants new gun management laws, extra enforcement assets for gun security, or each. A high Republican Occasion official mentioned Thursday that gun management just isn’t the correct reply.

In a Wednesday night time debate, state auditor and Democratic candidate for lawyer common Brian Colón mentioned he helps laws to make sure secure gun storage proposed by legislators together with state Rep. Pamelya Herndon of Albuquerque.

A failed invoice from Herndon this 12 months would have established gun storage necessities and established new crimes with misdemeanor and felony penalties for recklessly making a firearm obtainable to a minor.

Albuquerque-based District Lawyer Raúl Torrez — additionally searching for the Democratic nomination for lawyer common — mentioned legislation enforcement businesses want larger funding and coaching to harness New Mexico’s 2020 “crimson flag” legislation that enables police or sheriff’s deputies to ask a courtroom to briefly take away weapons from individuals who may damage themselves or others. The laws was proposed in response a racist assault focusing on Hispanics at a Walmart in El Paso that killed 23 individuals in 2019.

Torrez additionally mentioned dad and mom who fail to safe firearms from youngster entry have to be held accountable, and that he helps the creation of a gun-violence prevention workplace inside the state Division of Well being.

State Republican Occasion Chairman Steve Pearce on Thursday mentioned that “gun management just isn’t the reply” to highschool security considerations.

“We should present higher safety, extra police presence, steel detectors, one-point safe entrances and take different applicable measures to make our faculties a secure place for all,” Pearce mentioned in a press release.

Since Tuesday’s college capturing, Democratic governors and lawmakers throughout the nation have issued impassioned pleas for Congress and their very own legislatures to go gun restrictions. Republicans have principally known as for extra efforts to handle psychological well being and to shore up protections at faculties, equivalent to including safety guards.

Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham says elected officers ought to do all the things they will to reverse the proliferation of firearms.

“We should do all the things in our energy to scale back the variety of firearms and lethal weapons on our streets to ensure that everybody on this nation lives in peace and freed from worry,” mentioned Lujan Grisham in a press release.

Since 2019, Lujan Grisham has signed a raft of laws that restricts entry to weapons, together with an extension of background-check necessities to almost all personal gun gross sales and a ban on firearms possession for individuals underneath everlasting protecting orders for home violence.

5 Republican candidates are vying for the nomination in New Mexico’s June 7 major for the possibility to problem Lujan Grisham as she runs for a second time period.

The Uvalde assault was the deadliest college capturing within the U.S. in almost a decade.

Legislation enforcement officers killed the shooter, recognized as an area 18-year-old who had shot and wounded his grandmother and spelled out his violent plans in on-line messages shortly earlier than the bloodbath at Robb Elementary. Investigators say they don’t but know a motive.