New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham mentioned she won’t renew a public well being order that briefly banned carrying firearms in public parks and playgrounds in Albuquerque, the state’s largest metropolis.
The short-term order, which went into impact in September 2023, was supposed to gradual gun violence within the metro space, however high-ranking state officers, gun advocates and members of her personal Democratic Party broadly seen it as a violation of the Second Amendment proper to bear arms.
The order drew lawsuits from nationwide gun rights and advocacy teams, which pressured her to slim its scope from making use of to public locations all through Bernalillo County to making use of to parks and playgrounds in Albuquerque.
Lujan Grisham mentioned in a information launch Wednesday that greater than 1,700 firearms had been collected in gun buybacks over the previous yr due to the order. She additionally mentioned it had lowered the variety of gunfire incidents within the space, however she didn’t cite any numbers.
Lujan Grisham, who was unavailable for remark Thursday, mentioned within the information launch, “The public well being order, although short-term, allowed us to implement pressing and vital measures which have had a measurable, constructive impact on public security in our state.”
State Senate Republican chief Greg Baca mentioned Thursday that he didn’t help the order.
“From the onset, the governor’s motion was unconstitutional and a simple distraction to maintain from curbing the crime epidemic gripping our state,” Baca mentioned in a press release. “Unfortunately, the feckless shell of the unique order stood for over a yr.”
The National Association for Gun Rights filed a lawsuit in opposition to the motion final yr; it was dismissed after Lujan Grisham scaled again and modified her coverage.
“This is a win for gun homeowners,” mentioned Dudley Brown, the affiliation’s president. “This is a quiet strategy to admit her plan didn’t work.”
Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen, a Democrat who determined to not implement the ban as a result of he believed it was unconstitutional, couldn’t be reached for remark Thursday.
Allen mentioned final yr: “This order won’t do something to curb gun violence aside from punish law-abiding residents from their constitutional proper to self-defense. It’s unconstitutional. So there’s no approach we might implement that order.”
Lujan Grisham issued the short-term order, initially a 30-day ban, in September 2023 after an 11-year-old boy was shot and killed in an Albuquerque park.
In addition to proscribing firearms in public parks and playgrounds in Bernalillo County, it strengthened oversight of firearm gross sales and applied wastewater testing for fentanyl in public faculties.
State Attorney General Raúl Torrez, a Democrat, wrote in a letter final yr that he opposed Lujan Grisham’s resolution.
“Simply put, I don’t imagine that the Emergency Order may have any significant impression on public security however, extra importantly, I don’t imagine it passes constitutional muster,” he wrote.