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March 25, 2025
A Cautious Sigh of Relief in New Mexico
The quick, regular order legislative session in New Mexico, where strict gun control legislation had been making its way through committee consideration, came to an end on Saturday at noon.
The good news? Those gun control bills, that would restrict the rights of law-abiding New Mexicans and do nothing to hold criminals accountable for their crimes, failed to advance.
The bad news? New Mexico’s Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham isn’t happy and Second Amendment supporters in the state know very well she’s gone above and beyond before to enact dubious and unconstitutional gun control laws outside the normal process.
Stalled Out
Thankfully, Second Amendment supporters in the Land of Enchantment turned out in full force over the past several days and weeks to make their voices heard loudly and clearly. They don’t support Gov. Lujan Grisham’s gun control activism.
Two bills in particular where auspiciously close to gaining approval and proceeding to her desk for approval but legislators wised up, listened to constituents and chose not to proceed.
The bills in question included SB 318, which is an attempt to get around the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), that would open the door for frivolous litigation against firearm industry members from both private actors and the state’s attorney general based on nothing more than the marketing and advertising material of firearm companies, third party vendors and firearm retailers. It’s a lawfare tactic that began decades ago by antigun mayors in New Orleans, Chicago and New York City. These include others such as former disgraced New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, when he was serving as President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He organized dozens of local housing authorities to bring lawsuits against gunmakers and threatened the industry with “death by a thousand cuts.”
The mad dash push by New Mexico gun control activists toward the legislative cut-off line also included a push for SB 279, which would have banned the sale and manufacture of almost every semiautomatic long gun available. If that weren’t problematic enough, it also required existing owners to “certify” that they lawfully possessed the firearm before the ban took effect; essentially setting up a gun registry of those New Mexicans who already own a Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR). Those are the AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles that are more commonly-owned today than there are Ford F-150 pickup trucks on the road. For those counting at home, that’s more than 30 million MSRs in circulation today. City and state-level bans on MSRs have become more frequent at the same time as many more millions of law-abiding Americans have purchased them for any number of lawful reasons and the U.S. Supreme Court continues to deliberate whether or not to hear a challenge on the constitutionality of banning these commonly-owned firearms.
Not in the Clear, Yet
Not unexpected, Gov. Lujan Grisham made it clear that she wasn’t satisfied with the inaction of the legislature and she vowed to plow ahead on her own, invoking her power to call a special legislative session for “related and germane” pet issues. After all, this is the governor who two years ago infamously declared, “If there’s an emergency … I can invoke additional powers. No constitutional right, in my view … is intended to be absolute.”
This time, after Saturday’s regular order deadline came and passed effectively stalling out the gun control bills, the governor’s tone sounded eerily similar.
“While we made progress on universal free school lunch, literacy, water planning, and firefighting resources, I cannot ignore that we failed to adequately address the public safety crisis facing our state,” the governor said in a statement. “With 270 public safety bills introduced this session and only a handful passed, we have not met our responsibility to New Mexicans.”
The governor’s special session tease came on the heels of a gang-related criminal shooting that happened Friday night at “an unsanctioned car show.” Las Cruces police have already arrested one adult and three teenagers and charged them with crimes involved in the shooting. The three teens are already barred from legally owning firearms so no existing or additional laws would change that.
Cam Edwards at Bearing Arms connected the straight line from dots commonly used by gun control activists when criminal shootings occur inevitably leading to calls for more gun control laws that are ignored by criminals and only penalize the law-abiding.
“While Grisham and gun control activists are already pointing to the incident as evidence that an ‘assault weapon’ ban is needed, Las Cruces Police Chief Jeremy Story told reporters on Saturday that all of the more than 50 shell casings that were found at the scene came from handguns.”
Tom Knighton, writing in Townhall, added on a prescient point as well. “How anyone thinks an incident of two people getting guns illegally is a failure of too few gun control laws is beyond me. Instead, what we see here is a specific location where crime was becoming more and more of a problem and that local police say they were too short-staffed to actually do anything about,” Knighton wrote.
Staying Vigilant
Law-abiding gun owners in New Mexico have seen this show before. That’s the good news, if it can be described that way. The governor could very possibly overreact and overreach with strict gun control executive orders or additional gun control laws in her special session that do nothing to hold criminals accountable for their crimes and only penalize law-abiding New Mexicans. In the past, she’s been called out by even the most ardent gun control supporters for her overreach.
Those who value community safety and revere the Constitution can be relieved legislators on their own weren’t able to pass more gun control during the normal process during New Mexico’s 60-day legislative session. But all must remain vigilant for when the governor likely calls a special session to inevitably try it on her own.
NSSF will be watching.
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