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Copyright © 2019 Albuquerque Journal

RIO ARRIBA COUNTY – John Villareal, an electrician whose family has owned ranchland in Alcalde for a century, pops into La Cocina New Mexican restaurant in downtown Española on a recent day to catch up with his cousin – a regular at the restaurant who always sits in the same corner table.

Villareal isn’t shy about how he feels about the gun bills making their way through the Roundhouse.

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He said he has called his county commissioner and his state senator to express his worries that the bills would pave the way for the government to take his guns – which he counts by ticking off his fingers.

“Anytime we go camping or we go fishing, you just never know what you’re going to encounter,” Villareal said. “I like to have the option of having (a gun) without any restrictions. If I’m going down the road and I have it and I get pulled over, I don’t want to be questioned about why I have a weapon.”

It’s a common sentiment in Española and Rio Arriba County.

Despite having one of the highest percentages of registered Democrats for counties in New Mexico, Rio Arriba has joined more than 20 counties and municipalities throughout the state in recent weeks in passing resolutions opposing proposed gun legislation and declaring themselves a “Second Amendment Sanctuary.”

Gun legislation is being pushed by Democratic lawmakers both here in New Mexico and across the country, emerging as one of the central tenets of the party’s platform.

‘Rogue sheriffs’

This year a bill to require background checks on nearly all gun sales, even those done privately, has passed the New Mexico Senate and is moving forward in the House, where a similar bill has already passed. It was sponsored by Sen. Richard Martinez, a Democrat who represents District 5 – which includes much of Rio Arriba County.

Lawmakers have also introduced a bill to allow a judge to order guns removed from someone who presents a serious emergency risk to themselves or others, and another to bar people who have been convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence from owning a gun.

The state has 33 counties, and sheriffs from 29 of them have stood up in opposition to the legislation.

“We felt that our stance was falling on deaf ears, it wasn’t making any momentum and people were not paying attention,” said Cibola County Sheriff Tony Mace, the chairman of the New Mexico Sheriffs’ Association. “So what we decided is let’s get counties to draft a resolution to say ‘Hey, our sheriffs support people’s Second Amendment rights.”

This week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham responded to the sanctuary county movement by saying the background checks are constitutional and law enforcement cannot pick and choose which bills to enforce. She called the sheriffs lobbying against the legislation “rogue sheriffs.”

“Opponents of firearm safety measures can’t debate on the factual merits of these bills, so they turn to hyperbole, falsehood and fear-mongering,” Lujan Grisham wrote on Twitter. “Thus, we now have a few ‘sanctuary’ counties – political posturing & dangerous, cynical pandering.”

In response, Mace and others throughout the state have embraced the label “rogue sheriff,” by plastering it across photos and social media.

Commissions from urban counties, like Bernalillo, Doña Ana and Santa Fe, are not opposing the bills.

Bernalillo County Sheriff Manuel Gonzales has expressed his support for the Second Amendment Sanctuary counties but acknowledged the decision will be up to the commission.

‘Just symbolic’

Rio Arriba County Sheriff James Lujan is a Democrat. He voted for Lujan Grisham for governor and for Hillary Clinton for president. He grew up in Santa Cruz and served 11 years in the U.S. Marine Corps before joining law enforcement.

Lately, Lujan said, he’s been joining the Sheriffs’ Association in Santa Fe to voice his opposition to some of the firearm legislation championed by Democratic lawmakers.

“Up in Chama or Lindrith, somewhere out in the sticks, something happens out in that house and they need protection, so they call the police,” Lujan said. “It’s going to take an hour and a half for us to get from here to there – a lot can happen in an hour and a half before State Police, or sheriffs deputies or tribal police are going to make it out there. These people have to have their weapons to protect themselves, their family and their property.”

Nevertheless, if the firearms bills do pass, Lujan said he’ll enforce them.

“It’s pretty much just symbolic if you think about it,” he said. “I have an oath that says I’m going to enforce the laws in New Mexico even if it’s a law that I don’t agree with.”

At a packed meeting in Española last week the city council also voted to declare itself a Second Amendment Sanctuary City.

Española Mayor Javier Sanchez, who co-owns La Cocina, spent Thursday at the restaurant dealing with a water leak. He greets diners at almost every table – often addressing them by name – in between helping his staff prepare for the water department to come fix the leak.

He said he’s been fielding calls from constituents on both sides of the firearm legislation.

“I think this is more than simply recognizing the Second Amendment issue,” said Sanchez, a Republican. “This is recognizing that we don’t all believe what you’re saying at the Capitol.”

Lonna Atkeson, a political science professor at the University of New Mexico, said guns – like many of the contentious issues at the Legislature – are testing how people identify themselves and how they will vote in the future.

“You have two identities in conflict with one another,” she said. “You have the identity of party and the identity of rural, and those are in conflict with each other with this particular issue.”

‘A gun society’

By the side of the road, on a small crest dotted with trees next to U.S. 64 on the outskirts of Tierra Amarilla, is a sign that proclaims “Tierra O Muerte,” – “land or death.”

It’s a reference to the 1967 courthouse raid in which a group led by activist Reies Lopez Tijerina shot and wounded a State Police officer and jailer, beat a deputy and took the sheriff and a reporter hostage. The group believed that land grants given to the communities had been wrongfully taken away by the government after the region became part of the United States.

Desiderio Sanchez, the quartermaster at the VFW in Tierra Amarilla, referenced the raid in describing the mindset of many of his friends and neighbors.

“We have been a gun society forever. And yet we’re not violent with each other,” he said. The idea of protecting oneself “is very, very strong here, and the idea that somebody might take something away from us. That goes back to our forefathers when they lost the land. A pretty deep anti-government feeling.”

Sanchez, from Cebolla, owns a gun, for hunting and protection, but he agrees with the proposed firearm legislation and even wishes it could go further.

He said he’s an outlier in northern Rio Arriba County – an environmentalist who supported Bernie Sanders – and doesn’t agree with the counties declaring themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries.

“They think I’m crazy,” he said. “I went to Vietnam so they think I came back crazy.”

Salomon Ulibarri, a life-long hunter and a Vietnam veteran, lives with his long-time companion Sylvia Casados south of Los Ojos. Deer skulls with antlers hang over his garage and are lined up in front of a fireplace inside. A wood stove crackles and pops on a snowy day.

Neither Ulibarri nor Casados were concerned about authorities taking Ulibarri’s guns away.

The couple said they have been following some of the legislation on the news and both worry about children getting ahold of guns and bringing them to school.

“That’s the only thing that I worry about,” Casados said. “All the hunters have their guns already.”

Up the road, Henry’s Liquors sells a little bit of everything, including groceries, rifles and ammunition. Rico DeYapp’s grandparents opened the store about 30 years ago, and he works there with his mother.

Both describe themselves as “pro gun” and own firearms for hunting and protection. But, they say, since they’ve been selling firearms at the store they’ve seen the benefit of background checks.

“I don’t know if it’s something that crossed my mind,” DeYapp said. “It seems like its a bigger issue now, its such an epidemic, the shootings, the things like that are so bad.”