New Mexico Anti-Gun Group Investigated for Breaking Gun Laws

“Pictured are undesirable firearms from one family in Farmington, NM,” New Mexicans to Stop Gun Violence “Xed” Saturday. “Our gun buyback was cancelled by the Metropolis, however native residents requested us to indicate up anyway. So, we spent as we speak dismantling weapons home by home.”

This was their “after motion report” for his or her “Weapons to Backyard” program, meaning to destroy weapons and switch them into instruments, reported on AmmoLand on Dec. 6, with the title observing “New Mexico Gun ‘Buyback’ an Train in Contradictions.”

“What, no background checks?” this correspondent requested on the time.  “Will there be an FFL on the premises to document transfers?”

“The @NMStatePolice ought to examine a personal celebration going door to door and sawing folks’s weapons in half with out doing a background verify as required for a switch in New Mexico,” State Consultant Stefani Lord famous in response to the NMPGV publish.  “The @FBI and @ATFHQ also needs to look into this since a personal group does NOT have the power to verify NCIC to see if they’re now in possession of a stolen firearm. So many crimes dedicated by this anti-gun group.  @newmexicooag  must look into this offense.”

“We’ve got been doing this for years,” NMPGV shot again. “Usually, police give folks our telephone quantity once they need to flip in an undesirable firearm. This doesn’t violate any background verify legal guidelines as there isn’t a switch of firearms.  We merely dismantle them.  All that’s left is wooden and metallic.”

“So, you’ve been breaking the regulation for years?” State Rep. John Block requested. He’s bought some extent. How will you “dismantle” weapons in the event you don’t first take possession of them?

Gun homeowners have been fast to affix in, stating the hypocrisy of gun-grabbers allegedly breaking gun legal guidelines they lobbied for and the scrumptious irony of the prohibitionists “hoist with their very own petard.” And it seems Lord’s considerations have been prescient.

“UPDATE: New Mexico Sheriff has opened an investigation into whether or not anti-gun group illegally bought weapons in violation of Common Background Checks throughout a “buyback” and didn’t destroy these firearms in a authorized method,” Gun House owners of America commented when forwarding the NMPGV announcement. “YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP.”

UPDATE: New Mexico Sheriff has opened an investigation into whether or not anti-gun group illegally bought weapons in violation of Common Background Checks throughout a “buyback” and didn’t destroy these firearms in a authorized method ‍♂️⁰YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP

https://t.co/p54S7QkaXP

— Gun House owners of America (@GunOwners) December 18, 2023

“San Juan sheriff probes advocacy group’s gun buybacks in Farmington,” the Santa Fe New Mexican confirmed Monday. “[Sheriff Shane] Ferrari doesn’t imagine the regulation consists of an exception for the advocacy group.”

“Reviewing the regulation I don’t see the place they’re exempt from having to bear a background verify and are required to love anybody else,” Ferrari wrote on Fb. “I’m awaiting the District Legal professional and the Legal professional Common’s opinion on whether or not ‘New Mexicans to Stop Gun Violences’ gun buyback program is working lawfully and if regulation enforcement participation is following correct disposition of deserted/ unclaimed property. I’ll let .”

“This isn’t an investigation into the Metropolis of Farmington,” Ferrari famous, confirming the NMPGV admission that the town had cancelled the buyback.’ “The Metropolis of Farmington listened to their residents’ considerations and cancelled the occasion till that they had extra data and dialog with the neighborhood.”

What it is going to be, although, is an investigation of one other key actuality: That the 9 weapons collected (illegally transferred?) weren’t correctly destroyed. Per KOB 4:

Ferrari says the group isn’t destroying the weapons per ATF’s tips. “The image they present [on X] reveals a pile of weapons which have been lower in half. Effectively, ATF doesn’t contemplate these weapons destroyed. They’ll nonetheless contemplate {that a} firearm,” Ferrari stated.

That makes truthful a number of extra questions:

Have investigators taken the weapons into custody but? Are they nonetheless in the identical situation as within the photograph or have then been “legally” destroyed because it was taken? If that’s the case, by whom and when? If accomplished after an investigation was introduced and earlier than being surrendered, would that represent willful destruction of proof?

Town had issued a media launch saying they have been dropping out on Dec. 6, two days earlier than the scheduled “buyback”:

Metropolis Suspends Plans for Gun Buyback Program

Metropolis Supervisor Rob Mayes has introduced the suspension of plans to companion in a gun buyback program on Saturday, December 8, within the Farmington Police Division parking zone. Mayes acknowledged, “Primarily based on questions acquired from the general public, Chief Hebbe and I decided it was obvious this system had not acquired sufficient advance training and neighborhood collaboration previous to scheduling this occasion.” He added, “We are going to proceed to discover instructional alternatives and choices to help the general public with safely discarding undesirable firearms.”

And that ties into that earlier report from AmmoLand, which famous Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe’s curious admission: “Our function actually is simply to verify the weapons, guarantee that they’re not loaded, and I feel typically inadvertently, that also does occur, as a result of typically the folks delivering weapons aren’t actually aware of weapons.”

“So, wait,” I wrote. “He’s acknowledging prematurely that he and his division are knowingly creating circumstances to tempt individuals who might not know the very first thing about weapons to deal with after which transport them? In the event that they don’t know if it’s loaded, what different guidelines are they oblivious to, and what’s the chief’s rationale to resolve that doesn’t that endanger them and everybody round them?

“And if somebody will get harm or worse resulting from this intentionally detached incentivized ignorance, have they run the chief’s admission by their respective authorized departments to think about towards the acquainted civil grievance phrases ‘knew or ought to have recognized’?”

I included that concern in my Dec. 6 X publish publicizing the article a number of hours earlier than the town backed out, together with a hyperlink to the article and notifying each the town and the police division.

“I ponder if the town lawyer is keen to reveal @CityofFmtnNM  to unsafe gun dealing with legal responsibility the @FPDNM  chief publicly confessed to,” the publish acknowledged. “Why not ask?”

We’ll see what excuses the varied companies give you to indicate that ignorance of the regulation will be an excuse in the event you’re a gun-grabbing Democrat, as we watch NMPGV co-founder Miranda Viscoli flip increasingly more belligerently defensive about getting caught with gun-grabber egg on her face. However right here’s the factor: These of us against infringements of the appropriate of the folks to maintain and bear arms aren’t a lot focused on seeing her and her cronies get frog marched right into a holding cell (regardless that that’s precisely what they’d like see occur to us) as we’re in working towards the day when every of us is free to go door to door, with none prior restraints, and ask householders if they’ve any undesirable weapons they’d wish to promote us.

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of a number of journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun proprietor rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The Struggle on Weapons: Notes from the Resistance,” is a recurrently featured contributor to Firearms Information, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Fb.