New Mexico governor rescinds emergency health order that suspended gun rights in playgrounds

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Wednesday that she has ended an emergency public health order that suspended the right to carry guns at public parks and playgrounds in New Mexico’s largest metro area.

The original public health order in September 2023 ignited a furor of public protests, prompted Republican calls for the governor’s impeachment and widened divisions among top Democratic officials. It also sought to strengthen oversight of firearms sales and monitor illicit drug use at public schools through the testing of wastewater — before expiring on Saturday without renewal.

“I have decided to allow the public health order to expire, but our fight to protect New Mexico communities from the dangers posed by guns and illegal drugs will continue,” Lujan Grisham said.

She described strides toward reducing gun violence through gun buy-back programs, increased arrests, the distribution of free gun-storage locks and a larger inmate population at a county detention facility in Albuquerque.

The governor’s initial order would have suspended gun-carry rights in most public places in the Albuquerque area, but was scaled back to public parks and playgrounds with an exception to ensure access to a municipal shooting range park. Lujan Grisham said she was responding to a series of shootings around the state that left children dead.

Gun rights advocates filed an array of lawsuits and court motions aimed at blocking gun restrictions that they say would deprive Albuquerque-area residents of 2nd Amendment rights to carry in public for self-defense. The implications for pending lawsuits in federal court were unclear.

The standoff was one of many in the wake of a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision expanding gun rights, as leaders in politically liberal-leaning states explore new avenues for restrictions.

The gun restrictions were tied to a statistical threshold for violent crime that applied only to Albuquerque and the surrounding area.