I Have to Be at Work in the Morning

I am so fucking bugged tonight. And not in a vague, background-noise way. I mean deeply, bone-deep pissed.

Every single year, like clockwork, some asshole in the New Mexico Legislature introduces a bill to make legally purchased firearms illegal. And why? Not because they suddenly discovered a new mechanism of crime. Not because criminals politely followed the law and asked for permission first.

No. Because the guns are black. Because they look scary. Because someone once saw one in a movie.

People who don’t know a goddamn thing about firearms keep deciding that they are the problem. That law-abiding citizens exercising their Second Amendment rights are the threat.

News flash: we’re fucking not.

Here’s the second-biggest problem I have with this nonsense (right behind the idea itself): New Mexico lawmakers love to talk about “public participation.” People showed up at the Roundhouse, they say. Democracy in action. Let’s talk about who those people are. They’re retirees. They’re unemployed. They’re people with the luxury of showing up on a weekday afternoon to listen to political blowhards ramble about shit they don’t understand.

You know who isn’t there? People like me. People who work for a living. People who don’t have the option to take a random Tuesday off to defend rights that should never be on the chopping block in the first place. We don’t get paid to posture. We don’t get stipends. We don’t get to cosplay as moral saviors between lunch breaks. We’re busy keeping the lights on.

So here I am, on a Sunday night, staring down another legislative session where a bunch of idiots think they’re coming after me and my guns … again. And it still doesn’t make any sense. Not even a little.

Thugs kill people with illegally obtained firearms. Criminals commit crimes, shockingly, by breaking laws. And somehow, I’m the fucking problem?

Make it make sense.

I have to be at work in the morning. I get up at 4:30. I’m on the road by six. I have back-to-back meetings all day. When, exactly, am I supposed to remind lawmakers to get the fuck off my Constitution?

Better question: why do I have to do that every year?

I work for a living. People like me fund this state. We pay into the very coffers these clowns are entrusted to manage. And what do we get in return?

Threats to strip away our rights, again, because it’s easier than addressing actual crime.

So yeah. Hey, New Mexico Legislature? Get the fuck off my Constitution.