Dear New Mexico NRA Member:
On Monday night, the House Judiciary Committee advanced House Bill 193, which amends New Mexico’s red flag firearms surrender law to allow a police officer to petition for an extreme risk protective order (ERPO) directly, and to confiscate any firearms discovered when serving the order. Owners of guns seized in this manner would no longer have the option of storing them with, or selling them to, a federal firearms licensed dealer (FFL), as the original law permitted. And language has been added to the bill in a committee substitute to now allow ANYONE — not just a relative, intimate partner or school administrator as provided for in current law – who has information that a person poses a significant risk to themselves or others, to request that a law enforcement officer petition for an ERPO against that person. The information doesn’t have to be verified, it just has to sound credible, and the allegation could be made by someone who has no mental health training, or suffers from mental health issues of their own.
New Mexico’s ERPO law, which has been a failure and tramples on civil liberties with little or no due process, should be repealed not expanded. The bill now moves to the full House of Representatives for consideration.
The same committee, after hearing valid concerns from opponents of the measure, did not advance House Bill 166, which will essentially end the centuries-old custom of manufacturing firearms, or firearms components for personal use. This proposed ban on self-made firearms would criminalize hobbyists who design or manufacture and possess their own firearms. HB 166 creates a whole new list of criminal offenses and restrictions that far exceed and conflict with federal law (see below).
- HB 166 would make you a criminal if you manufacture a firearm and you are not a federally-licensed manufacturer or dealer, even if using a serialized receiver purchased from an FFL with a background check, or if you possess such a firearm made by a non-FFL.
- HB 166 would make you a criminal if you manufacture or otherwise assemble a gun that has no serial number placed on the receiver or frame by a federally-licensed manufacturer or importer, or if you are not an FFL and you possess or purchase separately, or as part of a kit, a firearm frame or receiver that lacks an imprinted serial number.
- HB 166 would make you a criminal if you use a 3D printer or similar device to manufacture a firearm or firearm component and you are not a federally-licensed manufacturer or dealer, or if you possess a firearm (or, presumably a firearm component) manufactured by a non-FFL, using a 3D printer. Anyone making this technology, including digital instructions or design files, available for firearms or firearm component production to non-FFLs in New Mexico, would be a criminal as well.
Please contact your state representative and urge them to OPPOSE HB 166 & HB 193.
Sincerely,
NRA Institute for Legislative Action