New Mexico’s push for a sweeping semi-automatic long gun ban just crashed and burned, leaving anti-gunners fuming and the Second Amendment community popping champagne. The measure, which aimed to outlaw popular rifles like AR-15s under the guise of public safety, died in the state Senate after failing to muster enough votes despite Democratic majorities in both chambers. Gun control outfits like Everytown and Giffords are predictably apoplectic, flooding social media with doomsday rants about blood on lawmakers’ hands, but let’s call it what it is: a rare win for sanity in a blue state trending hard left. This isn’t just a procedural fumble—it’s a direct rebuke to the post-Bruen cascade of copycat bans that have proliferated since the Supreme Court’s 2022 smackdown of New York’s concealed carry restrictions.
Digging deeper, the failure exposes the fragility of the gun-grabbers’ playbook. New Mexico’s HB 99 mirrored failed efforts in states like Illinois and Washington, relying on emotional appeals to mass shootings while ignoring mountains of data showing semi-auto rifles are used in a tiny fraction of crimes—FBI stats peg rifle homicides at under 3% of total gun murders annually. Pro-2A groups like the NRA and local outfits like the New Mexico Shooting Sports Association mobilized grassroots firepower, flooding committee hearings with packed rooms of armed citizens politely dismantling fearmongering with facts on defensive gun uses (over 2 million per year, per CDC estimates). The real game-changer? Bruen’s text, history, and tradition test, which lower courts are finally applying to shred these assault weapon schemes as unconstitutional historical outliers—no colonial equivalent to banning the musket’s rapid-fire cousin exists.
For the 2A faithful, this is rocket fuel: it signals momentum shifting westward, potentially stalling similar bills in Colorado and Nevada while emboldening challenges to California’s microstamping mandates and New York’s SAFE Act. Anti-gunners will regroup with ballot initiatives or federal pleas to Biden’s ATF, but each flop like this erodes their aura of inevitability. Keep your powder dry, patriots—victories like New Mexico’s remind us that when the people speak, the tyrants listen, whether they like it or not.
