By KHALIL J. SPENCER’
Santa Fe

I’ve read several academic, peer-reviewed papers on gun storage and in general, one must be pro-active, providing counseling and gun securing devices. Not everyone pays attention to what the Legislature is doing … (for example, see Effectiveness of Interventions to Promote Safe Firearm Storage, 2015, Rowhani-Rhabar et al, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26769724/)

This storage bill fails on two counts. One, it is not proactive. If the bill authors wanted to make a difference, funding for gun locks and outreach with gun violence prevention advocates who put boots on the ground, such as NMTPGV, SFPD, and NMSSA would help.

Two, due to sloppy wording typical of too many of the Legislature’s bills, the bill faults adults if a minor accesses a gun even if the gun is locked up. The bill holds the gun owner culpable if the minor accesses the firearm, period, without any language protecting the adult if safe storage is used. So even if the gun is “safely stored” according to the definitions in F-4 of the bill and a minor uses a crowbar to get it, one is just as culpable.

I’ve been contacting the bill authors repeatedly and have been studiously ignored. That, in a nutshell, is why many of us are not cheering this bill on. So, I sent my critique to House Judiciary Committee yesterday (Friday).