New Mexico waiting period for firearm purchase

[thesinfulsaint]

I understand we have few members here from New Mexico. What do you all think about the new law of seven business day waiting period for firearms purchases the state hung on the residents?

How are folks taking it and reacting to it? This will definitely kill all the gun shows and somewhat private/estate sales.

Any thoughts?

- Saint

[timmy]

Saint: You could not have calculated a more efficient way to "bring me out of the bushes" than a post like this one, which I'm sure that you know.

We've both been around here for quite some time, and we know what the response would be if certain "outsiders" would come on this site and start up saying "what India should do." They would be told that they don't understand the nation or culture by the most charitable respondents, right?

I have some answers to your questions, but not to all. Let us first observe that there is more complexity to the answers than would be indicated by the ideological rubbish that is part of almost every conversation in the USA today.

First, one observation made by a famous USA journalist back in 1959 or so, John Gunther, in his book Inside the USA, was that New Mexico was the closest one could come to living in a foreign country while being in the USA.

It may seem odd to the casual observer, that New Mexico and Texas could be so different, and yet neighbors with an entwined history. Yet, this is true. For instance, Texas is a very tribal state, where people identify themselves by belonging to some tribe: "I'm an Aggie," "I'm a Longhorn," "I'm a conservative," or "I'm a Baptist" are a few examples that I'm sure you've heard in the Metroplex "once or twice." Texans are very assiduous and aggressive in trying to prove that they really do belong to a tribe, both to tribal insiders and to tribal outsiders.

New Mexico, on the other hand, "takes them as they come." A person is generally given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to being a "worthy" person, and tribal labels are not accounted for meaning much. Generally, I would say that culture in New Mexico shows signs of being very ancient (somewhat like India in this regard) in the sense that it has seen and tried many ways of living in the past, and has outgrown many marks of immaturity. This is all opposite that of Texan culture.

Another thing to note about New Mexico is that, coincidentally, it is almost the same size as the nation of Poland, and like Poland, so much of what goes on there is like the Poles playing middleman between the giant neighbors of Russia and Germany, except in this case, it is the two giant states of California and Texas, each with sharply different cultures that demand subservience, and which make every effort to impose their "way" on their neighbor.

Like India, New Mexico is multicultural, and traces of human habitation go back tens of thousands of years. Even today, the oldest continually inhabited human dwelling in the Western Hemisphere, Acoma Pueblo, is in New Mexico, and the Spanish entered New Mexico in 1598, long before Anglos established settlements in other areas that are now part of the USA.

Understanding New Mexico means recognizing other "firsts": That New Mexico is the poorest state in the USA (with, perhaps, the exception of Mississippi), That it gets more money back from the Federal Government for every tax dollar it contributes than any other state (about 2:1), and that it ranks very low in health, education, and income. The chief economic drivers of New Mexico are the Los Alamos Labs and the Sandia Labs in Albuquerque. Take those two sources of revenue and much of New Mexico would dry up and blow away.

Albuquerque, the largest city, now experiences crime on the level of Baltimore, Maryland -- some of the highest and worst in the nation. I can recall when it was a wonderful, beautiful city, a great alternative to the furnace-like heat of Arizona with a tremendous cultural background. Then, about 1990, the "Bloods" and the "Crips," two gangs from Los Angeles, moved in and made Albuquerque a violent place, which it remains today. Frankly, most of what is wrong with New Mexico can be described in two words: "Texas" and "California," and I think most New Mexicans would agree with this statement.

New Mexico has its own way of doing things and its own values, and both of these differ sharply from those two states. This is true with many rural areas in the USA and a number of the small Western states (a shrinking number, sadly!), but it is most strongly true with New Mexico.

My point to all of this is to say that, before assessing New Mexico's gun laws from a "Red-Blue," "Conservative-Liberal," or any other of these nauseatingly permeating and tiresome discussions so prevalent in the USA today, The place to start is by understanding New Mexico culture and going from there.

Psychology class in college will teach you that Hispanic and Native American cultures are collective, and that Anglo culture is individualistic, like the "Marlboro Man." But stand up in Texas or some other states and say you are a Liberal or a Democrat and see how quickly you are ostracized! Or, stand up in California or New Jersey and say that you are for gun ownership and against abortion, and see how fast you are ostracized!

You see my point: Anglo culture is very much into regimentation and enforced "group-think," where the psychology-taught collectiveness of Hispanic and Native American cultures means that, whatever a person's opinions are, they are still accepted. Now tell me: between these two examples, where do you find the most "freedom" (whatever that is)?

Well, I know what suits me best!

I will add that it is a Western trait (and "The West" doesn't include the West Coast or Texas) to mind one's own business. For the reasons I stated above, this holds true for New Mexico. Generally, from this point, I'd say that the 7 day waiting period cuts against New Mexico values. If you want a gun, carry a gun, if you don't, don't. There were no concealed carry permits in New Mexico in the past. Carrying concealed was a $15 misdemeanor and perhaps a hassle from the police. The one thing you didn't want to do was carry where alcoholic beverages were sold, and this included a grocery store that sold beer. That was a felony. Also, your car was considered your domicile, so you could carry in your car, no problem. The laws have changed since then.

I don't think that the 7 day waiting period is going to stop bad actors. People who are bad actors know how to get guns and have known how for quite some time. Doing your own thing is Western and especially New Mexican, so these patterns are of old. One will argue that it prevents someone from buying a gun and committing suicide (suicide rates are high in New Mexico), but also it prevents someone, like a battered and abused wife, from getting a gun in a hurry, legally, and protecting herself and her children. You might call this "a wash," but I'd favor protecting the innocent wife over someone who'd decided to end their own life, which I don't believe is gun violence like murder or armed robbery.

As far as what New Mexicans think of the 7 day waiting period, their government passed the law, right? I don't agree with it at all and I feel that it is a mistake, but looking at it from the Blue-Red ideological perspective, New Mexico has tended to have a left of center leaning, perhaps from the days when President Mirabeau Lamar of Texas sent a Texas army to conquer New Mexico in 1843. They got lost on the Llano Estacado and Governor Armijo sent the Santa Fe police to round them up and send them to the calabozo in Mexico.

So part of the 7 day waiting period is foolish, I think, and part of it is due to a long and oppressive history that New Mexicans have had to endure from larger neighbors. It's not as straightforward an issue as first meets the eye.

(Try reminding a Texan of this -- I have on a number of occasions, and while it is quite a bit of fun, it isn't a way to win friends or influence people, as Dale Carnegie says.)

Albuquerque is so violent now that I cannot imagine not carrying there. Even in Northern New Mexico, I think that carrying would be advisable.

Arizona and Texas, neighbors of New Mexico, have reasonable gun laws. Utah, to the northwest, isn't too bad. Colorado (which I call California Junior) is not good and is getting worse. Traveling between states is confusing, because of all the different state laws, despite the Federal law that supposedly allows one to transport guns through hostile states.

Some people claim that this should be a state-governed issue, but I strongly disagree. The right to keep and bear arms is supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution and should be the law of the nation, not up to individual states, just like freedom of speech and freedom of religion. It's either right or it's wrong, in other words, but anti-gunners keep passing laws that are taken to the courts and become expensive and time consuming to overturn.

[thesinfulsaint]

That was quite a post and very informative I will add. Seems like this change is not appreciated by anyone who loves true freedom and it shows online. I guess you get who you choose in the office.

More and more leftist are moving to red states and ruining it for all of us after ruining their own states.

[timmy]

I guess I wasn't clear: Living in the West is about a lot more than guns. For instance, the wealthy people from California and Texas come in droves and drive the property prices through the roof. People who have lived in the area or in the town for a long time, in houses that have been in the family for centuries, sometimes, then cannot afford the property taxes because the values have gone so high. So, they have to move out, ousted by people from other states. I have seen this personally and it is common. As a retired person, in fact, it is affecting me.

The people should be free to own guns, yes, but they should also be free to live in their own houses without being forced out by newcomers.

You can walk across the street and, if the oncoming cars slow or stop to let you cross the street, or if they practically run you over or even honk their horn at you, you can tell that the one who slows or stops will have one kind of license plate on their vehicle and the one who practically runs you over will have an out-of-state license plate.

In New Mexico it commonly happens that out-of-staters will wave money underneath people's faces while insisting on getting what they want. The end result of this is that they find the locals to be "stupid" -- they become "stupid" very quickly in these cases. However, being courteous will invariably find friendly, helpful responses.

how courteous and civilized to live in a place where people mean more than money.

I have just been visiting my very old and dear friend's ranch where his son, grandson, and a number of teenage boys who had escaped the city were branding and castrating calves. The atmosphere was so different from other places -- rural, agricultural, friendly, fun, and easy-going. Raising kids in such an area is a very great blessing.

My point is that, while I sharply disagree with New Mexico's gun policies and laws, there are many reasons why people vote for who they do. IT is much more about culture in New Mexico than it is about one aspect of the political landscape. As I pointed out about California gangs, had out-of-state influences not invaded the State, it is much less likely that any anti-gun laws would have been considered. Another issue is the huge wave of drugs, car theft, and other illegal activities that come up Highway I25 and keep going north through Denver and further on north, forming a corridor of goons that can be overwhelming for overworked police forces.

What I'm saying is that New Mexico is somewhat like India -- who people vote for doesn't necessarily make them good or bad, and they have many reasons for doing what they do.

I would also be firmly of the opinion, in the case of New Mexico, that the people moving into the state are often no better than those who they are running away from in their home state, which is why they ruin the place by turning into the place they left. Why else would things go bad if those who have moved in have not brought their bad and rude behavior with them? New Mexico got along fine without them for centuries.

This is not just New Mexico: every state in the West has been plagued by newcomers from Texas and California, as if beset by a plague of locusts. Colorado and Arizona have long been ruined, and now Montana and Idaho are just about gone to the dogs. New Mexico isn't unique in this.

Moved to RKBA forum and locked by moderator. The political aspect is taking an irrelevant turn.