New Mexico Gun Bill Fires Blanks

Lawmakers anticipate only one arrest per year for unsecured firearm violations

The Bernie Hargrove Act, criminalizing unsecured firearms in your own home, is headed to the governor’s desk.

The bill, (HB9) was named after the 13-year-old Albuquerque student who was shot and killed in 2021 after confronting a bully at school. Juan Saucedo Jr. allegedly took his father’s gun to school on the day of the murder (and the previous day), according to reports. The alleged shooter’s father, Juan Saucedo Sr., had previously been “banned from Highland High School after he shot and injured another parent during a fight in the student pick-up lane in 2018,” according to The Albuquerque Journal.

“Saucedo Sr. was never arrested and the District Attorney’s Office declined to charge either man after determining both men had ‘valid defense claims.’ ”

Several Democrats sided with minority Republicans in opposing the bill, but it was not enough to overcome the Democrat Party’s near-super-majorities in both chambers.

The bill makes it a misdemeanor for parents whose minor children brandish an unsecured firearm, and a felony if their child injures or kills someone with a firearm that was not properly secured.

The Castle VS School

It goes without saying that there’s a stark difference, in law and in logic, between shooting someone at school and defending your home against those who might wish you harm. One is a crime—Hargrove’s death is currently in litigation; the other a human right to self-defense that no law should obstruct.

One may reasonably ask, “How are you supposed to defend yourself if your guns are all locked up and someone breaks into your home?”

The answer offered by the state legislature was not “Call the police,” because short-sighted though New Mexico lawmakers may be, they’re not idiots. Police respond to crimes. They don’t prevent them. (As the saying goes, “When seconds matter, police are mere minutes away.” Though if you happen to live in Albuquerque, “mere minutes” actually ranges between 38 and 98 minutes.)

The problem Democrats are attempting to solve is real, in New Mexico and nationally.

“The age-adjusted rate of firearm-related injury deaths in New Mexico in 2020 was 23.1 per 100,000 residents. This means that in 2020, for every 100,000 people in New Mexico, 23 individuals died by firearm. This rate is 3.4% higher than the age-adjusted firearm-related death rate of 22.3 deaths per 100,000 residents reported in 2019. However, compared to a decade ago, this rate is drastically higher. The 2020 rate is 55% higher than the rate from 2010 (14.9 deaths per 100,000 people).”

—NMDOH, December 2021

But the issue is not so cut-and-dry as to be easily solved by gun safes and trigger locks.

This bill may seem like another unconstitutional gun grab by Democrats trying to legislate what happens inside your home. In principle, any infringement on the Second Amendment is unconstitutional. But in terms of practicality and enforcement, Conservatives who honor the Constitution and who have respect for firearms should not worry themselves too much with the new law.

Bad Parents & Negligent Gun Owners Beware

If a child is shooting people with his dad’s gun, a logical person could see how the parent ought to be held liable for negligence. (The bill specifically excludes self-defense, defense of another person, and lawful recreational use of a firearm.)

After every major mass shooting (by “major” I mean only straight White killers, because the mainstream media doesn’t hype any other kind), when the news reveals details of the killer’s life and hobbies and psychoses, most people find it unfathomable that the parents who created these monsters are not held liable.

Adam Lanza’s mother raised her son in a hole with a video game console. He was ugly, awkward, weak, and weird. So she bought him guns.

Anderson Lee Aldrich was 22 when he murdered trannies at a gay nightclub, but he was not an adult. His mother forced him to go to the gay nightclub for entertainment. What she didn’t force him to do was work or pay rent or exercise.

Monsters are created. Frankenstein should share the blame.

For Republicans who believe in self-responsibility and think minors are ill-equipped to make adult decisions (16 year olds voting, for example, or lopping off genitals in the name of self-discovery), holding parents liable for the illegal actions of their children isn’t that outlandish of an idea.

Is it a slippery slope? Sure. Will it prevent the next Bennie Hargrove murder? Probably not.

Case Studies

Washington state passed a firearm security law that took effect mid-2019 and its firearm fatality rate increased, according to CDC data. Perhaps a better case study is California, which has had a gun storage bill on the books since 2008, or Connecticut, which has criminalized unsecured guns in the home since 2005. Both states have seen increases in firearm fatality rates up through 2020. CDC has not released 2021 data per state, but national gun-related fatalities rose 8% over 2020 and nearly 13% among youth.

New Mexico lawmakers who read the Fiscal Impact Report know full well the bill won’t have any real effect. It estimates that the creation of these two new categories of crimes will result in a resounding…one…additional arrest per year.

“It is difficult to estimate how many individuals will be charged, convicted, or get time in prison or jail based on the creation of a new crime. Without additional information, this analysis assumes at least one person will be admitted to jail each year for this crime…”

What the Law Doesn’t Do

The gun safe law heading to the governor’s desk doesn’t make it a crime to have an unsecured gun. Police called to your house because of a noise complaint, for example, would have no legal authority to cite or arrest you if they saw a loaded, operable firearm sitting on the coffee table.

Thankfully, words matter, and New Mexico legislators put two very powerful “ands” in the Benny Hargrove bill.

According to the bill,

“A person commits the crime of negligently making a firearm accessible to a minor if: (1) the person keeps or stores a firearm in a manner that negligently disregards a minor’s ability to access the firearms; and (2) a minor accesses the firearm and displays or brandishes the firearm in a threatening manner…”

The language is the same for the bodily harm section of the bill.

Brandishing a firearm is already illegal. As is shooting people. The only condition in which an unsecured firearm becomes a crime is when the firearm is used illegally.

New Mexico legislators might as well have passed a bill that makes it a crime to commit a crime, because that’s essentially what they’ve done here.

Mandatory Car Key Locks?

It’s low-hanging fruit but a fair question nonetheless: If a parent is legally liable for their child’s actions on guns, why not cars? Should the state legislature require parents to lock up their car keys to prevent their kids from taking a joyride that might turn deadly?

The obvious answer is no, but when states creates laws based on individual tragedies, the Car Key Safeguard Protection Act is only one sob story away from being introduced by some do-gooder state legislator.

Parents are already held civilly liable for car crashes caused by minors, and there’s obviously a difference between criminal and civil liability, but the question remains: should parents be held responsible for the actions of their children?

In principle, most people would say yes, they should.

But if more laws don’t solve the problem, the lack of legislation on the topic isn’t the problem.

Charging someone with a felony after a tragedy is like calling the police after your house was burglarized.

As the Pinon Post noted, “It is unclear how the bill, if signed, would be enforced since it is a reactionary piece of legislation based on if someone is harmed or killed by a weapon.”

For the party that believes education cures all societal ills, very little is being done to actually prevent the next child shooting.

Despite $3.6 billion budgetary surplus, the New Mexico legislature has not dedicated a single dollar to firearm safety, training, or awareness. Not a dime will be spent on a program funding trigger-locks for parents who fear their kids might misuse a firearm in the home. Not a penny will be spent on a public awareness campaign informing residents about the law—which might actually have an effect, as it might force parents to think twice before leaving their pistol on the kitchen table when they leave for work in the morning.

Nuance Isn’t Lawmakers’ Strong Suit

How many New Mexico lawmakers—even Democrats, and especially Democrats living in the increasingly violent city of Albuquerque—expect gun owners to lock up their guns in their own homes?

The answer is zero, and the reason is obvious.

In the hierarchy of needs, self-defense comes second only to the physiological essentials of air, food, water, sleep. No sane person living in these times would depend on police to protect them from violence, nor would they sacrifice the their own safety or that of their family in order to stay within the comfortable designation of being a “law-abiding” citizen if it meant locking up the one tool that ensures that safety.

Luckily, most New Mexicans don’t have to choose—because most New Mexicans don’t have the risk.

Protect Yourself At All Times

To protect yourself against the threat of crime and the liability of negligent use of a firearm by a minor, be a steward of your weapons. The one thing Democrats didn’t bother to address—education—is the only way to prevent avoidable tragedy.

Teach your kids about gun safety, about the reason for the Second Amendment and the importance of not abusing it. Eliminate the forbidden fruit effect surrounding firearms by allowing your kids—and their friends, with parental permission of course—to not only handle but shoot firearms.

Teach them about the lethality of guns and the legal repercussions of abusing them.

Treat weapons like you would guard access to a vehicle.

And take responsibility for your children.