When New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham took her animosity toward the Second Amendment and ramped it up to 11, trying to ban all lawful carry in Albuquerque, she said it was in response to the rampant violent crime in the city. She called it a public health crisis and used the draconian restrictions we saw during COVID-19 to justify this particular draconian measure.
And, of course, she got slapped down over it.
But it’s clear that she never got the message regarding the right to keep and bear arms nor the fact that while the city does have a problem, it’s not guns that are causing it.
In fact, it’s probably something else fueling a lot of the problems.
The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office seized 65,000 fentanyl pills and three guns on Tuesday during a search of an apartment off East Central.
Richard Cortez, 44, who authorities say lived in the apartment, is charged with drug trafficking and three counts of possession of a firearm by a felon.
Michael Herrera, 18, who was inside the apartment at the time of the raid, is charged with resisting, evading or obstructing an officer for not surrendering “for over 30 minutes.”
Both men were booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center. Neither man had an attorney listed in online court records.
Court records show Cortez was sentenced to prison for drug trafficking in 2010 and for years afterward bounced between prison and probation after repeated violations.
In 2016, a BCSO deputy arrested Cortez on felony drug possession, according to court records. Cortez faced another potential prison stretch, but the case was dismissed, and Cortez was set free after the deputy didn’t show up for court.
Prosecutors filed a motion to detain Cortez until trial following Tuesday’s seizure, calling him “dangerous.”
“The defendant is a major dealer of fentanyl in the Albuquerque area,” according to the motion. “He had three firearms ready for use.”
How could he possibly have gotten guns? Gun control laws are in place to prevent people like this from getting guns, after all.
Then again, there are laws intended to prevent people from getting 65,000 fentanyl pills, too, and we see how well they worked.
See, the issue with most violent crime is that the violence is often ancillary to something else. In the 1990s, when the homicide rate was so ridiculous, it was gangs and drugs. To some degree, that’s still the case. Convicted felons aren’t reformed, they’re just put back on the streets where they seek out ways to continue with their previous criminal endeavors.
In this case, Cortez was a known felon with a long and prodigious history as a criminal, only to be able to become a “major dealer of fentanyl in the Albuquerque area.”
It looks to me like putting him right back on the streets time and time again wasn’t really doing all that much, and knowing a deputy didn’t show up for court in 2016, which got his case dismissed makes it that much worse.
Let’s remember something, folks. If fentanyl is so heavily controlled–and yes, it is–and people like this jackwagon can get it, why does anyone believe you can keep someone like this disarmed? What makes them think that suddenly a law will be passed that will make it so he can’t get firearms from any source?
It’s insane.
Then again, what about gun control isn’t?
Read the full article here
