It Could Happen Here - New Mexico's New Gun Ban and America's Irritated Jerk Murder Epidemic

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

Robert sits down with Lucas Herndon, a New Mexico-based activist, to talk about his governor's new unconstitutional gun carry ban and why murder in Albuquerque is up 50%See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Welcome, everyone, back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about things falling apart and sometimes stuff that's slightly less depressing than that. But not today. Today we're talking about the falling apart sort of thing. And our continuing coverage of what we like to call the crumbles here today leads us to a little state called New Mexico and specifically a little city in New Mexico called Albuquerque. If you have been kind of casually skimming the news about the American Southwest, you might be aware that the governor of New Mexico has recently

announced a ban on citizens carrying openly or concealed with a license firearms within the county that contains Albuquerque. The justification for this is a recent surge in gun violence in the state, most of which is centered on Albuquerque. And this is, there's been a pretty, over the last, specifically the last year, a pretty dramatic increase in the number of shootings. From 2021 to 2022, the number of shootings in Albuquerque, or murders, I should say, most of which are shootings also, about 84%.

The number of murders in Albuquerque almost doubled. I think it's, and I think still, you know, it's gone down a little bit this year, but there's still about 50% higher than the normal rate. Now, as you might guess

from the fact that you've probably watched Breaking Bad 15 years ago or whatever, the drug trade, drug trafficking, drug deals gone bad have something to do with this. But I think this year, about 17, something like that, 17, 20% of the homicides in Albuquerque are drug related, but a much higher number, above 70%, the police have given the sort of kind of primary cause as individual disrespect. Now, what does that mean? Well, it means kind of what you'd think of it, people getting into shit with each other and somebody pulls a gun, right?

A lot of these have been traffic related. And in fact, the shooting that kind of most directly inspired the governor's controversial legal measure was a road rage incident about – what was this? Yeah, on September 9th, I think it was, an 11-year-old boy was shot and killed in a road rage incident as his family was leaving a minor league baseball game. It looks like his aunt cut off another driver. The driver followed them and fired 17 shots into the car. The 11-year-old boy was killed and his aunt is still in the hospital in unstable condition, at least last I checked. After this shooting, and this is by the way, prior to this, there was another case where a little kid, I think a four-year-old was killed in another road rage shooting incident. We don't know who shot the kid in this instance. We don't

know if it was, for example, a citizen legally carrying a firearm or somebody. Although in the state of New Mexico, you are allowed to carry a loaded firearm in your vehicle. You're not allowed to walk around with it concealed without a license, but you're allowed to conceal it in your vehicle. The shooting that preceded this one, the road rage shooting, wasn't a legal shooting. It was because the guy was a drug dealer. He had illegal drugs on him, all that stuff. But, yeah, it's messy. all that stuff. But yeah, it's messy. So in response to the governor's proclamation,

there have been quite a bit of people who have gotten angry in part because the Supreme Court ruled fairly recently that you have a right to carry a concealed firearm. There are some barriers states can set up in terms of licensing, but you can't stop people from carrying, like you have to have a legal avenue for people to carry concealed firearms. That's something that the Supreme Court has said you have a right to do, and governors do not have the right to overrule that sort of thing on public health grounds. So this has become an increasingly contentious issue. We're going to talk about some of the things that have followed from this, but I want to bring on our source for the day, Lucas Herndon. Lucas is a New Mexico-based activist, someone we've had on the show before, as well as a gun owner. Lucas, welcome to the program. Thanks, Robert. Good to be back, sort of, as always. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a messy one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is a messy one. Yeah, so that was a good summary of what got us here. This, the executive order was dropped Friday afternoon, and I immediately went to my work chat and said, hold on, y'all, this is going to be a wild weekend. And as you can imagine, it was. There has been incredible responses from sort of everybody on the sort of, yeah, despite political ideologies, the responses have been swift and ranging in their loudness, let's say uh and it's created a yeah national buzz um a number of right-wing talking heads from the state have now you know been brought into national talking spaces uh we have seen the news bounce around the far right

blogosphere and you know it's made it to it to Alex Jones and that kind of ilk. But then, of course, you know, and so obviously there's the there's that far end of the spectrum. And, you know, then there's the response here in the state, which is, you know, ranging from supportive to indifferent to angry to, you know, all the different things you can think of. Yeah. One of the things people may be kind of confused about this. One of the things that's problematic about this is specifically the fact that it is restricting citizens who have concealed carry permits

from continuing to carry in the county. States have a right to, at least currently, the Supreme Court has not ruled counter to that, currently have a right to restrict people from open carrying. And you have a right to restrict people from doing stuff like have unlicensed carrying a handgun in your car, right? In the state of Oregon, for example, you cannot carry a loaded weapon in your vehicle without a concealed carry permit. As far as I'm aware, there's not been any

sort of constitutional challenge to that. There may be in the future. But the Supreme Court has ruled very differently on the issue of concealed firearms. And so that's a problem because regardless of what you think about how the law on concealed carry of firearms should be, the idea of a governor overturning a right like that, access to a right like that, based on what they call a public health emergency, is deeply concerning, you know, which is why you've had, you know, surprising people come out against this, including David Hogg, who's one of the Parkland kids and a gun control advocate who said, you know, the governor simply doesn't have the right to do this, which is kind of more or less where I land. Yeah. And, you know, and just to, just to be clear, right. I'm, I'm not an attorney, uh, but I, I am a gun owner and, and, uh, have exercised that right since I was legally allowed

to do so at 18, which was very long ago at this point. Um, so yeah, I've been, I have been a New Mexico gun owner paying attention to things, uh, and, and how those laws affect me for quite a while. One of the interesting things about the executive order, and you sort of touched on it, is that in the order, it specifically limits having a firearm in your vehicle to traveling to any excluded place that she listed in the executive order right so so there's there's a there's a ban on you know carrying unless you're going to like x y or z specific places and that

then is furthered that you can only have a firearm in your vehicle if you're traveling to one of said places um so yeah that's that is in direct direct contradiction to existing law because New Mexico, ostensibly your home or your car is an extension of your home. arm in your car um which has led to some weird things because so for instance um you can get a dui on a bicycle and so that law has actually been used that you can carry a concealed firearm like in a backpack on a bicycle but the second you step off the bicycle now you're in violation of the law unless you have a permit so you know they're those specific pieces of gun law and her executive order, even in the state, are at odds, let alone whatever the maybe the federal implications are. and that should be concerning about this to people is that I, I don't see how I can see an argument for saying we want to restrict the unlicensed carry of firearms and vehicles, right?

Because a not a significant number of these shootings seem to have involved that, although it is a little bit unclear. We don't know who, who carried out the most recent road rage shooting. So we don't know if that person was legally allowed to possess a firearm, right? We know that in at least one of the recent shootings that killed a kid, the person was, you know, had a dealing amount and what appeared to be a dealing like a setup of,

you know, it was parceled out into baggies, marijuana on him, which is illegal. I'm not making a moral statement about that. I don't think it should be illegal to but it is it is illegal, right? Like he was not carrying within the bounds of federal law. But restricting people from carrying licensed concealed handguns does not seem, I mean, number one, I haven't seen evidence that like that's a major driver of gun violence. But number two, if a decent number of these shootings are people acting outside of the bounds of the law, which they appear to be, I don't see how restricting people from lawfully carrying a weapon is something that can – that's going to galvanize resistance to any kind of gun control, as opposed to going out with kind of a more limited and surgical approach to try and actually tackle the causes of the problem. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the reasons why being on your show

to talk about this is is worth thinking about. The last time I was on uh was you know earlier in the year when um there we we discovered that the there was a gop operative who had committed acts of violence in the form of shooting at democrat elected democrats uh up in the bernalillo county area um as an act of political violence and um worth thinking about is that you know he was charged with firing of firing a firearm from a moving vehicle which is a crime like it's yeah it's a specific crime which and also like very valid crime you should not be you should never shoot from a moving vehicle like that's correct that's correct so the right so we you know again um yeah again not a lawyer however it seems duplicative to have a law on

the books that already um there it is a crime to fire your gun from a car already uh and people who have people who have committed heinous acts of violence by violating that law um could be and should be charged under that law first of all let me just say like if we believe in a car serial state because that's a whole other moral question however if for the purposes of this conversation um however if somebody is just driving down the street and has a gun in their car does that create you know are they are create – are they committing a crime that feels conflicting and harmful? Yeah, and it's – as you – there's a couple of a dishonest anti-gun control argument that comes out from time to time, which is the idea that you shouldn't restrict access.

You can't restrict access to firearms because criminals won't obey those laws. It's true criminals don't obey. Like people who are committing gun crimes are not obeying the law by definition. They're people who are committing gun crimes. They're people who are committing gun crimes. But increased availability, access to firearms makes it easier for people who are going to be bad actors to acquire firearms, right? Regardless of what you think the legal remedy to that situation are restricting – we have people who are not acting legally with firearms they already own. So we are going to restrict people who are acting within the bounds of the law with firearms they own from behaving in a certain way, which I have a serious issue with. But I do think that there is a difference between those two kind of situations on a pretty fundamental level. Yeah, I would agree. And the disingenuous

knee-jerk response from the far right over this, while completely expected, that's exactly what they're doing, right? They're equating this ill-informed, poorly worded, however you want to say it they're they're they're taking this thing and using it as a pretense for all their uh far-right propaganda extremes um you know calling to impeach the governor because she's you know intending to violate the constitution or some silliness like that um which is yeah which is just yeah it's that's just far-right conspiracy masturbation in my opinion and it has galvanized them right there's been open carry protests already um and the sheriff saying or one of the sheriffs in the area saying like i'm not going to we will not be

enforcing this law well and and yeah and I think that that's actually maybe something that for this podcast and for your audience, for those longtime listeners who've who followed this show, that to me is actually one of the most maybe interesting and like crumbles oriented parts of this. Yes, yes, absolutely. Yeah. So, yeah. So yesterday, the Bernalillo County sheriff, who is an elected official and it is his county that the that this executive order affects, came out and said that he would not enforce it. He said that he'd got he'd barely gotten a heads up from the governor, but he did admit that, you know, she she sort of like reached out to him said hey i'm gonna do this thing i know you probably won't agree and he's like yeah i don't agree and she's like okay well we'll figure it out and he was like okay i guess we will um anyway uh yeah so this he

came out made this announcement he's not going to enforce it um the the chief of police from the albuquerque department has more or less made the same intonation with support from the very progressive Democratic mayor of Albuquerque, who hasn't necessarily outright said he disagrees, but has said that he's more concerned about his officers safety. And that brings up an interesting point that like, oh, yes, like like cops trying to enforce this law, like that sounds like a recipe for disaster, which is which is why you didn't see any cops enforcing the the order at the protest on Sunday. Yeah. It is one of those like, why? Why would you write like that? Yeah. Yeah.

why would you write like that? Yeah. Yeah. So the most recent thing this afternoon is that the the state's attorney general, whose whose job it is to defend the state or, you know, officers of the state has announced that he will not defend the governor in his official capacity from the three current lawsuits that have already been filed since friday um so so yeah there there basically seems to be this complete lack of support from the from the parts of government that are supposed to do the things you know yeah absolutely and and you know it it begs the yeah it for those of us that think about these things, it begs the question of, yeah, how far does this go? What is the next, you know, thing that a sitting governor attempts to pass using administrative power and then isn't enforced? And what does that mean? And how do we care about this one, but not other things or, you know, whatever?

that mean and how do we care about this one but not other things or you know whatever so those are those are the questions that that we're all asking ourselves here in new mexico and as somebody who who works in this field professionally like we've spent a lot of time in the last 48 hours like asking ourselves those questions it's tough it's there there really there isn't an easy answer Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures.

I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world

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It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join

me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our

culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Black Lit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Probably underreported stories. We've talked about it from time to time here. You know, it was something that kind of was in the DNA of the original, you know, run of it could happen here. But probably we could stand to talk about it a lot more.

Is the rise of those common term these guys use for themselves as constitutional sheriffs, right? And there is this, this is a longstanding belief on the far right. It comes out of really the 70s and 80s is when a lot of this stuff started cooking. But this belief that has kind of formed over, you know, particularly the last 20 years, that the sheriff constitutionally is the highest law of the land, basically, right? And so you can have sheriffs who refuse to particularly, and this is where it comes in most often, refuse to enforce gun control laws, right? Right. And this is sort of – you've got a lot – some of this came – got sort of like mixed in with a lot of the election bullshit on the right where like you had a lot of sheriffs, you know, there was a lot of concern as to how they would respond to states and the federal government sort of enforcing, you know, or stopping, you know, the Trump administration from doing some certain things around the counting of votes. You know,

there was a lot of real like concern about that. And I think this is something that is going to continue to be more and more of a problem because a lot of these sheriff's departments are completely out of fucking pocket, right? These are – and by the way, with sheriff's departments, not that being part of a police hierarchy in a traditional sense provides much restraint, but sheriffs are completely fucking out there, right? Like there are not – it does vary from state to state, but there's not any sort of like central requirement about like what it takes to be a sheriff or a sheriff's deputy. A lot of them are just dudes, right? Like, that's why you had, it was either in New Mexico or Arizona, like a small sheriff's department basically selling to like celebrities, you can become

a sheriff's deputy here, like work a week and a year and then you can carry a concealed handgun wherever because cops get that right you know right right yeah yeah so I just want to be clear because what you're talking about and how it pertains to New Mexico is both 100% correct and has happened here

it could happen here but is but in the case of this yes issue right now bring that up yeah yeah bernalillo county sheriff took office this year he is a democrat yes he's a man of color uh not this is not me making excuses for cops no no but i just to be clear about this and he is generally disliked by the right yeah and has been seen as you know whatever soft on crime and stuff which he hates um yeah and has tried he's tried real hard to sort of buck that position um and and so and and that which which makes this all the maybe worse right that that yeah yeah a

democrat elected in a democratic county with a you know, the city, the state's largest Democratic municipality. Right. Like for that guy to be like, yeah, I'm not going to not going to do this. And I also there's something that needs to be said here. You cited some great and tragic statistics about my state, um, and specifically about Albuquerque, uh, earlier. And, and this is a public health crisis, right? Gun violence. Absolutely. Yeah. When you're seeing the number of homicides basically double, you know, the space of a fucking year, that, that is a, that's a Christ. Something needs to be done. Right. Right. And, and so one so one of one of one of the big

things that hasn't i don't think been said loud enough is that if if we you know you know if we all agree that it is a crisis a 30-day ban is not gonna it's not gonna do anything and it's certainly not gonna address the root causes and i i actually very reluctantly have to hand it to the sheriff for his statements yesterday because as he put it um he has enough crime to deal with he's got enough going on that his deputies have to have to deal with right now to to then go and enforce this arbitrary rule or, you know, order. It's not a, it's not a law. It's the, you know what I mean? So, so that's another thing, right? Like this is your, your, we're dealing with a public health crisis by putting the impetus on

law enforcement, which is the whole problem with, you know, the way that this country deals with the quote-unquote drug problem. And let's be very clear here. When the governor issued her order on Friday, she issued two orders. One is called – the one dealing with guns is declaring state of public health emergency due to gun violence. But at the same time, she issued one saying declaring state of public health emergency due to gun violence but at the same time she issued one saying declaring state of public health emergency due to drug abuse and there you know for her these things are related uh and and she's you know she's trying to tie them together um and i think we all know that given the last 40 years of american history dealing with drugs via you know law enforcement has not done anything to help the problem and uh and so that it just again this is one of those things where it feels

counterintuitive for a governor who you know generally um the democrats of this state support uh who has won by fairly large margins in both of her elections and has a Democratic majority in her legislature. That for her then to issue this order and put more requirements on her law enforcement that she's expecting to also then carry. It just doesn't it doesn't make sense. Right. And so that's where we're all scrambling. It's, it's, there's a couple of things that make this so dangerous. One is that it's this unnecessary own goal, right? You know, as you stated, this is not this, and I didn't want to be a sort of intimating

that he was that this sheriff is not particularly tied in directly to some of these longer standing weird constitutional sheriff things, but it does tie into this pattern of sort of conservatives backing sheriffs against state power and against federal power that they dislike. In this case, one of the things that makes this so toxic is they have a point, right? This order is not constitutional. And giving them ammunition like that is, number one, it strengthens right-wing organizing in a way that is dangerous, but also it's completely unnecessary. It does not address the problem. And the problem is very like extremely serious. And so I find this kind of distracting from realistic solutions here, you know, which by the way can probably do to some extent involve restricting, you know, certain – the ability of people to carry in certain situations, to carry in certain ways in certain situations. I think one of the, yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.

No, no. Well, I was just gonna, I just want to, you know, for, for folks interested in,

you know, what New Mexico has done, um, things that have happened in the, under this administration are, there are, there have been some advancements that as a gun owner, I support one was closing private sales as a thing um you know

i grew up buying guns out of the backs of cars um uh wild i have some wild stories about that um but that was a fully legal thing to do we had private sales in this in the state i bought a lot of car guts yeah yeah yeah and it is fun but we should probably probably that's not probably this should probably yeah probably yeah um and especially and and especially for those of us that don't have anything restricting us from purchasing firearms there's no reason to not just anyway so so that being said so the new mexico did did end private sales uh so that being said, so New Mexico did end private sales. So that's one thing. And then this last year, we instituted – it's not a full safe storage law, but it goes a long way into instituting a safe storage law.

It specifically creates a situation where if a minor gets access to a gun that was not secured and then commits a crime with it, then the owner of that firearm is then held liable. And it has been used now twice in two fairly high-profile tragic shootings in the state. I should note here, a decent number of the recent spike in homicides have been children getting access to firearms owned by adults, either accidentally or purposefully using them to shoot and kill people. Right. Yeah. So as you, yeah, the law, the law is, the law is called the Benny Hargrove act, which was named in, in honor of a, of a young man who was killed at a middle school by a fellow middle schooler with a gun that the guy got off of, you know, that got out of a you know a bedside drawer um and uh yeah and as again as a firearm

owner like i'm sitting across from my safe right now i keep my guns locked up so there are there are practical solutions here yes and um and i know that this country has a hard time talking about guns without it getting out of pocket very quickly um but there are practical solutions um we have you know one of the interesting responses from democratic lawmakers in the state over the last you know three days has been a call for a special session of our legislature to discuss what some of those things might be the trouble with that is that in everybody's got this like knee jerk thing and everybody wants to talk about crime. I'm using big air quotes, crime. And, and which is in direct counter, you know, counterance to the idea that this is a public health crisis. So, you know, we have a lot of

reservations about what, what might come out of a session like that. We would have we have a lot of reservations about what what might come out of a session like that um we would have to do a lot of work to protect you know some of the things um we've you know we've done a lot to protect people from the car serial system in this state which is um hella predatory um and so those are protections we want to keep you know keep in place but it's easy for the right of course to blame like that's the reason the reason the reason why shootings have increased is because um we let people who've been arrested for um you know petty theft or something out of out of jail yeah and for some reason that's why crime is up i don't know it doesn't make sense but um anyway so you know it's even even with the solutions come more problems. But but yeah, there does seem to be this the the the unintended consequences of this order seem to be the the not just the backlash, but then the sort of non support from folks who would otherwise be supporting her. So.

Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter. Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating.

I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot.

Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect

original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me in a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters.

From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Black Lit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I kind of want to close probably by talking about, thank you for that, by the way, for that context,

for talking about what I think is the underlying, a big part of the underlying cause here that is also a big part of a surge in violence in a number of states nationwide, which is that like people are a lot of a significant chunk of this country has become unhinged since COVID. I kind of suspect that has a lot to do with it. But you are seeing in a number of states a significant amount of like anti-social violence, violence that occurs because somebody cuts somebody off in traffic. Somebody gets into an argument at a store. Somebody gets into an argument at a parking lot. There have been a number of shootings as a result of this. It's happened.

This is a big part of the rise in gun violence in Texas, which is also tied I think to permitless carry to an extent. But like it is broader than that too, right? This is not purely a – access to guns is why a lot of these crimes involve guns. But there's just been this rise in antisocial violence, a lot of which comes out of arguments or perceived disrespect between one person and a group of people or two people or whatever. And I think this is probably tied into with a lot of the increase in political violence we've seen because a decent amount of it does arise out of that.

And this is part of what I think is kind of disheartening about the governor's response here is that this is a very serious problem and the kind of knee jerk reactions don't help it. But also like, I don't know what does, right? You can deal with aspects of this problem, right? Maybe if people aren't just able to throw a gun in their pants and legally be carrying, there will be less of these shootings, but that doesn't deal with all of the underlying problem. I think that, you know, I, I'm thinking, I'm thinking about the first time I was able to go to a school function of my daughters after, after COVID orders were lifted. And I remember I was, was with a family member and they were commenting on sort of people's bad behavior in the auditorium. And I had to remind them, I was like, you know, these people have not been outside in a year and a half.

And specifically, some of these little kids that are running around they they maybe have never been to a function like this you know what i mean like by the time by the time most three or four year olds have are going to i don't know like a baseball game or a band concert you know they've at some point it's the first time but you know they get used to it they start to understand the rules of things um but yeah like after you know if you grow up and you're all of a sudden you're five and you've never been to something like this, like you don't know you're supposed to sit down and be quiet and listen to the thing, right? Like you're just sitting on your

phone anyway. So yeah, I definitely agree with you. I think in New Mexico, we're not isolated from other states in the sense that we have a rise in drug use and related crime. We're not isolated in the sense we have a rise in, you know, our houseless population in, in lack of job, or at least good jobs. And, and all of those things come together to make life hard, you know, and when life is hard, it, it, it impacts people and they make, you know, bad decisions. The thing that I think does hurt New Mexico and is maybe what makes New Mexico unfortunately sort of stand out from some of its issues is we are a very rural state. We have one fairly large city in Albuquerque.

But even then, the surrounding parts of Albuquerque just like the rest of the state are very rural um and there's a certain amount of you know we just as a state we are lacking resources and always have you know we rely so heavily on one industry and uh without without the systems in place to um ensure that people have a place to live or you know a meal to get a job to go to recreation that they can afford things like that. I mean, it is tough. It is just tough out there. And I'm, I'm privileged and I get to, you know, I am, I'm, I'm raising my daughter in

a home that, you know, we want for very little. But I see it even in my, in my peer group. I see people who are struggling all the time and yeah, it's just tough out there, you know? It is, it is. And I honestly, you know, New Mexico and Oregon are similar in a lot of ways and that they're both very low popular. I think we're both at around 4 million people

if I'm not mistaken. Oh, New Mexico is only like 2 million. Oh, you're 2 million. So yeah, even less. So low population states that have one big city that kind of dominates politics Oh, New Mexico is only like 2 million. you know, fatal issues due to drug use, right? Now, one of the things, obviously, one of the things Oregon has coming through it is because of all of the retirees and stuff here, like a much higher tax base, right? So there's theoretically more resources, although I tend to argue very incompetently applied. So most of those don't actually get out. But you do have this kind of,

this is one of these places where this urban rural divide is both a lot stricter and where this state that is the majority of the population and is dealing with such severe issues is also kind of the political center or the city is also the political center of the state. Well, yeah, that and and just yeah, you absolutely hit on something there. You know, Albuquerque has been historically, you know, decentralized due to gentrification for the last generation because of exactly what you said, which is that retirement community, you know, outside of oil and gas. the labs and the universities and things like that. Retirees are basically our third highest generative revenue. Agriculture's probably in there too, but you get what I'm saying. They're a very high portion. The Albuquerque that I grew up going to visit all of my family in and going downtown, going down to the international district, going near the university, you know, it never felt.

It never felt. I hate to use the word dangerous, but it never felt dangerous. Right. It never it never felt that way at all to me. Not that it not that I feel danger to my to my person as a, you know, as a white cishet dude with a beard, like walking around, like I usually feel pretty safe in my person, but, um, yeah, I can't say that I would, I have reflect that from everybody that I know that lives there and people make choices about where they go, what time of day, et cetera, et cetera. And a big part of that is because of the gentrification that has pushed the, the, you know, native population of Albuquerque out into these more rural places. It makes it harder to get to groceries, get to jobs, get to transportation.

Yeah, all of those are factors in this, and it's not just a one-size-fits-all solution. Well, Lucas, is there anything else you wanted to get into today? Oh, I mean, there's always something, but no, this was great. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. I appreciate you giving us the opportunity. I'm a longtime listener of this show. And when this issue came up, I really was thinking about some of those topics you brought up way back in the first run of it could happen here and thinking about that conflict that exists between state entities and passing laws and enforcing laws and who does

that and who doesn't and what does it mean if they don't? Yeah. Yeah. So this will continue to be a topic of vibrant discussion. So I'm sure we'll have you back in the very near future yeah happy to come back for that yep yep all right everybody this is the uh this has been an episode of it could happen here you know go go yeah lucas you have any pluggables to plug before we roll out of here uh yeah sure i mean if you are interested i'm on twitter at lucas herndon and um if you're curious about you know new, New Mexico politics, Progress Now New Mexico on all the socials. Most excellent. All right, everybody. This has been an episode. Go home. happen here is a production of cool zone media for more podcasts from cool zone media visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you

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