Armed with an AR-style rifle, Jared Diesburg, center, of Albuquerque joins fellow gun rights advocates during a pro-Second Amendment rally on Saturday, March 8, 2025, at the Roundhouse, hosted by the New Mexico Shooting Sports Association and New Mexico Firearms Industry Association as state legislators debate placing restrictions on certain semi-automatic gas-powered guns. Jim Weber/The New Mexican

By ANDRÉ SALKIN
The Santa Fe New Mexican

About 40 gun rights supporters gathered outside of the Roundhouse on a snowy Saturday to express their opposition to gun control measures being considered by the Legislature.

Specifically, Senate Bill 279, which would outlaw the sale, transfer, and receipt of gas-powered semiautomatic rifles that use high-capacity magazines and ban magazines holding more than 10 rounds.

Gun owners who currently own one of the weapons to be restricted would be allowed to keep them but would have to certify them with the state. The bill advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 5-4 vote Friday night, along party lines except for Sen. Joe Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, who voted against it.

Jared Diesburg was one of the handful who brought with them a semiautomatic firearm that would be implicated under the bill. He said the bill will result in “mass noncompliance” if it passes. 

“if I can jump through federal hoops for some of the things I own, there shouldn’t be that many more state hoops that I have to jump through,” he said.

The New Mexico Sports Shooting Association and the New Mexico Firearm Industry Association organized Saturday’s Second Amendment Rally at the Roundhouse. Matthew Mammoser, deputy director of state affairs for the National Association for Gun Rights called the certification requirement in the bill “more worrisome” than the restrictions on “gas-powered firearms.”

“They’re going to require everybody with any of those firearms to quote-unquote ‘certify’ the firearms,” he said. “They’re going to build a registry and throughout human history, when people have to register their weapons, they are confiscated. People with weapons that are not registered do not get filed in cattle cars.”

Another attendee, Walter Herrera, questioned whether lawbreakers would comply with the law.

“ Who do you think this really impacts? Us law-abiding citizens,” he said. “Like, do you think violent criminals will listen?”

Sen. Crystal Brantley, R-Elephant Butte, was among the Republican lawmakers who spoke at the rally. She is on the Senate Judiciary Committee and voted against the bill.

“I don’t care what they pass out of here, it is unlawful. I have no doubt it will be challenged in court either,” she said. “It is important, I think, for legislators to be reminded [of] that, whatever moral responsibility that these people think they have in bringing this kind of overreaching policy forward.”

She did give credit, though, to Cervantes for breaking with his party. It was one of the few breaks Democrats received at the rally, which saw broad lambasting of the party as being radical, anti-gun extremists.

“We have one simple request for lawmakers and for Governor [Michelle Lujan] Grisham: leave our rights alone,” said Clay Kimberling, state grassroots coordinator for the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action.

Lujan Grisham was a common target, with one attendee carrying a sign depicting the governor in a Nazi uniform with an Adolf Hitler mustache, a Zia symbol replacing the armband swastika.

Lujan Grisham has long been a supporter of gun control, including SB 279, and last year signed a bill putting a seven-day waiting period on gun purchases. The state fights over the issue leapt into national news when she issued an order in 2023 suspending the right to carry firearms in public spaces in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County for 30 days, citing a rise in gun violence.

Rep. Stefani Lord, R-Sandia Park, said their fight is “not necessarily with the governor,” pointing to the decline in the number of conservative Democrats in the Roundhouse over the past few years as they have lost primaries to more progressive challengers.

“The Democrats came out and primaried the people that we had,” she said. “I loved Willie Madrid, I loved Harry Garcia Democrats. They got rid of them. Now … these are people that are radicalized to the left, and guess what happens? They never, ever, ever, ever, ever vote with us. It doesn’t matter if it’s the best bill in the world.”

Lord pointed to House Bill 486, a bill she sponsored with Democratic Rep. Anita Gonzales, to require the state Children, Youth and Families Department to do more to ensure a parent has no history of sex crimes before returning a child to the parent’s custody. The bill has yet to receive a hearing.

“They love pedophiles!” one person from the crowd yelled.

“They are pedophiles!” jeered another.

Lord urged the attendees to seek new Republicans to fit legislative seats, noting it might be a moderate, and that “we’re never going to win with a hard, hard, hard right.”

“I’m horribly outnumbered, and it’s not just the gun bills, it’s some of the worst woke, woke bills I have ever seen in my life,” she said.

She cited House Bill 9, which passed the House on Friday and would lead to the closure of New Mexico’s three Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities.

“They want to give the finger to the federal government and see if [President Donald Trump is] going to go ahead and cut off all our Medicaid dollars,” she said. “And good luck with that when they do.”