Following up on our recent examination of New Mexico’s decreasing population numbers, we have identified some additional possible reasons why more people are moving out of the Land of Enchantment than moving in. So: Why does your spouse want to move back to Mexico? Why did your neighbor recently move to Texas? Why are more and more Santa Feans planning to cross the borderline into Colorado? Here are some possible reasons:

1. Safety: Maybe they just don’t like the fact that the number of applications for state permits to carry concealed handguns more than doubles from year to year; or that New Mexico law allows visitors to carry guns while walking around its state Capitol or its state parks; or maybe they just don’t like the idea of being gunned down by his landlord, his neighbor, or his wife; or living where some people kill nuns, their fathers, their girlfriends, or their mothers.

2. The Treatment of Animals: Maybe they just don’t want to live in a state where a person might stab a dog; where people may legally slaughter and butcher horses; and/or where the state may execute roosters for the crime of cockfighting.

3. The Quirkiness: Maybe they just don’t like the idea; that an 84-year old citizen is arrested for drug trafficking; .that some people still believe that flying saucers actually did land in the state; that a man might kill and rape his girlfriend’s infant daughter; sell drugs to middle schoolers; or tattoo his 3-ywar-old nephew.

4. The Police: Maybe they just don’t like states where police officers are often accused of killing people, driving recklessly, driving drunk.or bribery; where a policeman’s wife bought guns for a convicted drug dealer and accused murder; or where a cop could be found masturbating in his squad car while on duty.

5. The People: Or maybe they’re tired of reading newspaper stories about some local guy being arrested for actually having intercourse with his passenger while driving; or a local gal facing burglary and battery charges for unplugging an elderly neighbor’s breathing tube, trying to bite an sheriff’s deputy, stealing zoo animals, or furnishing an entire home with stolen goods.

6. The Religion: Maybe they just don’t like places where there is a secretive church whose members partake in hallucinogenic tea-drinking rituals; or, if you're Catholic, where there is a church in which an attendee stabbed four fellow parishioners; or, if your Hispanic, where a newspaper published a picture cartoon of Our Lady of Guadalupe in a bikini sipping a margarita,

7. Official Misconduct: Maybe they just don’t like places where some sheriffs, lawyers, professors, teachers, surgeons, and judges commit crimes.

8. The Schools: Or possibly it’s about what is being reported about New Mexican schools: that thirteen new Athletic Directors are being hired for Albuquerque schools rather than teachers; that one New Mexican school was locked down by police because a student was found to be in possession of a large burrito; or that the bus driver of their children’s school bus might expose himself to his passengers.

9. Wildfires: But other states in the West have this problem too.

10. The Heat: Ditto.