New Mexico is the battleground for the latest confrontation between politicians determined to impose legal restrictions on the right to acquire and own the means of self-defense and people unwilling to obey such laws. The state's governor is publicly feuding with county-level officials who, responding to grassroots anger at the proposed gun measures, vow noncompliance if they become law. The evidence from similar spats in other states suggests that government officials are once again poised to have their impotence demonstrated by people eager to disobey dictates from above. Mandatory background checks for most gun transfers, court-ordered seizures of firearms, and the denial of self-defense rights to those convicted of domestic violence offenses feature in the bills moving through the state legislature. The measure requiring background checks for all gun transfers, except between close family members and cops, seems to have excited the greatest opposition...Confrontations of this sort in other states—including Colorado, Washington, and even New York—resulted in the kneecapping of intrusive firearms restrictions. And comprehensive background check (CBC) laws in Colorado, Delaware, and Washington produced an increase in such checks only in Delaware, researchers from the University of California-Davis reported in a study published in 2017 in Injury Prevention. "One plausible explanation for our findings is low compliance in our study states," the researchers wrote, continuing:
In Washington, there was a well-documented public "I will not comply" rally at the state capital, at which firearms were openly transferred between private parties without background checks. There were also gun shows where non-compliance was encouraged and public calls from profirearm organisations to not comply with the state's new CBC policy... Many county law enforcement officials in Colorado reportedly stated they would not enforce its CBC law, and some retailers were declining to process background checks for private party transfers.In each state, noncompliance was a result of widespread local opposition to the law. Spurred by their communities, sheriffs in Washington also refused to enforce the background check requirement, and more than half have vowed to ignore new gun laws passed last year. And the rebellion among Colorado sheriffs, who are elected to office there as in most states, came in response to local sentiment of the sort that turfed-out lawmakers who supported gun restrictions. Which is to say, the "low compliance" in both Colorado and Washington was the result of grassroots defiance, with local officials following their rebellious constituents, not leading the way.
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