Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told Newsmax on Wednesday that New Mexico's Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham "shot herself in the foot" attempting to ban citizens from carrying guns in parts of the state for 30 days.
"I would love to be the Republican nominee to go up against her in the next election," Huckabee said during "Eric Bolling The Balance" on Wednesday. "That would just be the dream opportunity for a Republican running for governor of New Mexico. I think, to borrow a metaphor that may be appropriate for this, I think she shot herself in the foot with the gun she didn't think she ought to have."
U.S. District Court Judge David Herrera Urias sitting in the United States Court for the District of New Mexico issued an injunction Wednesday blocking Lujan Grisham's public health emergency order from last week that banned open and concealed carrying of firearms in the greater Albuquerque metropolitan area for 30 days in the wake of a rise in shootings there.
The order is temporary until a preliminary hearing on the governor's action is held in about two weeks, CNN reported.
"A judge temporarily blocked sections of our public health order but recognized the significant problem of gun violence in this state, particularly involving the deaths of children. I refuse to be resigned to the status quo," Grisham said in a statement reacting to the ruling. "As governor, I see the pain of families who lost their loved ones to gun violence every single day, and I will never stop fighting to prevent other families from enduring these tragedies."
Huckabee said that even the most ardent anti-gun advocates recognized that this was a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution's 2nd Amendment guaranteeing citizens the right to keep and bear arms.
"I do think it was a boneheaded move on her part. I don't know who she got advice from," Huckabee said. "Surely, she has a chief legal counsel. There's no governor's office that doesn't have a room full of lawyers, and maybe she just didn't bother talking to them."
Huckabee said that the judge in the case did something that Lujan Grisham apparently did not do by reading the Constitution.
"Now the real question. What consequences will she face? Will it be impeachment? Will it be just the embarrassment of being laughed out of the state and the capital," Huckabee said. Clearly, the judge had done something that Grisham had not done. He actually read the Constitution and took ninth grade civics class."
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Charles Kim ✉
Charles Kim, a Newsmax general assignment writer, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years in reporting on news and politics.
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