Albuquerque Gun Store Defies Governor’s Orders By Opening Its Doors

A gun shop in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is self identifying as an essential business and plans on opening up, in defiance of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s lock down orders. 

KOB reports:

A gun shop in Albuquerque plans to reopen despite a Public Health Order from the governor that says non-essential businesses must close through April 30.

Louie Sanchez, owner of Calibers, said the order is an over-reach by the governor.

“So, we at Calibers have decided that we are going to open up with social distancing on our range,” Sanchez said. “And you know what, we’re going to take this fight back to her. We feel that unless, somehow, she got a magical power to take the Second Amendment out of our constitution, that we have the right to open up.”

Several groups, including the NRA, are suing the state over the Public Health Order-– claiming it’s a violation of the Second Amendment.

The governor’s office released the following statement in response to Calibers:

The state has taken and will continue to take an extremely broad view of what is considered non-essential to public health amid this pandemic. Gun stores are hardly the only entity having to adapt as we work to stem illnesses and prevent deaths. No one is happy about closing in-person business in our state – no one, including the governor. But it is inarguable that the only way we get through this pandemic with the fewest number of deaths that we can manage is to limit travel outside of the home to the greatest extent possible – and while we as an administration unequivocally support the constitutional right to purchase a firearm, we recognize that right does not correspond to a right to congregate in a store and infect neighbors and workers and public safety officers amid an unprecedented global pandemic.?“ Nora Meyers Sackett, spokesperson for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham