It’s no secret that Democrats want to take guns away from everyone - including law-abiding citizens.  In 2019, Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat from Texas, said the quiet part out loud when he told voters, “hell, yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”

But the Constitution is clear: the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.  That’s kept far-left activists from confiscating guns outright, and our judicial system has upheld the second amendment time after time.  The result: Democrats are trying to invent new reasons to ban firearms.  They’re taking inspiration from a time when they were able to get an iron grip on the American people - the COVID-19 pandemic and the public health emergency that let them get away with major power grabs.

Last week, the Democrat Governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, signed a public health emergency to suspend open and concealed gun carry laws in Albuquerque, New Mexico, citing shootings that took place over the past few months.  By falsely claiming - that she has the constitutional authority to declare a public health emergency to ban guns, she is deflecting.  Instead of dealing with rising crime, she’s pretending to offer a solution that really just turns law-abiding citizens into criminals.  She’s making Beto’s dream to “ take your AR-15, your AK-47” a reality.

It has to stop.

I believe that every letter of the Constitution must be upheld, including the Second Amendment.   That is why I helped introduce bills like the Gun Rights and Marijuana Act, which would protect Second Amendment rights for medical marijuana users in states where such programs are legal, and the Home Defense and Competitive Shooting Act, which would treat short-barreled rifles as any other full-size rifle and allowing law-abiding citizens to protect their homes and families.

As your Representative, I will fight these unconstitutional power grabs whenever and wherever I see them.  I’ll continue to make sure that our government does not infringe your fundamental and constitutional rights to bear arms.