Over the first weekend of 2024, there was a gun buyback. From a Santa Fe paper: New Mexico State Police on Saturday held gun buyback events in Albuquerque, Española, Las Cruces and Farmington, ultimately collecting 1,289 guns from all four locations. “This was another proactive event where people could voluntarily turn in unwanted guns as a means to help minimize gun violence, reduce suicides, accidental deaths and injuries where guns are involved,” State Police Chief Troy Weisler says in a statement. DPS held a previous gun buyback event in November, from which it collected 439 guns.

While 1289 is still way too many guns and people disarmed in a State facing major dangers, it is incredibly low, given the population and the dictatorial control by so-called progressives and liberals in the State. We here at TPOL were surprised that Farmington was included, but 150 were surrendered there. While Farmington is conservative and has strong libertarian advocates, it is also the only location in the Navajo Nation, where the tribal government and the government agencies are all strongly hoplophobic. Those surrendering guns anonymously got $100 gift cards for handguns and $200 cards for longarms.

Although we do not know for sure, we suspect many of these were rusted-out antiques. We also wonder how many were 3D-printed guns or other forms of homemade and possibly non-working weapons. And that is assuming we can trust any info from the State Police, perhaps the most tyrannical of State agencies in the entire Fifty States, and well-known for its blockade of entire cities during the Pandemic Panic. (We are sure that there are some “good people” in NMSP uniform or working for them, but that does not keep them from being tools of tyranny.)

Meanwhile, her Imperial Highness is facing at least some challenges to her hoploclastic efforts to disarm all (non-government) New Mexicans. Firmly believing in the boiling water strategy, back in September she tried to ban any carry of firearms in Albuquerque and other places in New Mexico in “public places.” After defiance by both the Albuquerque police chief and the Bernalillo County Sheriff, and multiple lawsuits, she backed off some: only in public parks and playgrounds. A federal judge denied a petition to prohibit the emergency order while lawsuits were proceeding. (But as far as we know, only the NMSP are attempting to enforce the order.)

The governor apparently tried to keep it from going to the State Supreme Court, but the coalition of legislators, active and retired law enforcement officials, gun rights advocates, and lovers of liberty were able to do so. As the Court began its hearing, State Police cars and thugs were prominently present in the area, supposedly to “keep the peace.” We wonder, though, if there is not a certain level of intimidation of the justices – and especially of those watching and testifying/presenting the case for liberty.

Her justification for the emergency order was the public health emergency of gun violence and drug abuse. The trigger for her emergency order was the killing of an 11-year-old when the pickup in which he was riding was targetted by mistake by a drug-runner, outside a sports arena. The emergency order did not include magical powers for law enforcement to detect weapons hidden on people, and may or may not have included weapons in vehicles.

The governor’s record – and that of many State agencies and tribal authorities in New Mexico – is a strong indicator that their goal is a truly Hispanic-style tyranny as seen so often in the rest of Latin America and in both Spain (multiple decades of Franco’s fascism) and Portugal (the Salazar dictatorship also lasted for much of a century).