Second Amendment advocates celebrated this week after Tuesday’s encouraging news from the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The court ruled in Ortega v. Grisham that New Mexico’s seven-day waiting period for citizens to purchase a firearm is unconstitutional. This is an exciting victory for the National Rifle Association (NRA), the Mountain States Legal Foundation, and the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
Appeals court ruling has the potential to affect tens of millions of gun owners
The panel of federal judges determined that the contentious law “likely” infringes on law-abiding citizens’ rights. They also correctly found that there is no historical precedent on which to base the waiting period.
NRA-ILA Executive Director John Commerford noted the key ruling may have a domino effect for lawful gun owners in other states, as well as New Mexico.
“The Tenth Circuit has sided with the NRA and held that radical waiting period laws are indeed unconstitutional,” Commerford declared. “This decision not only impacts gun owners in New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, and Oklahoma, but serves as a key piece in dismantling similar gun control laws across the country.”
Appeals court correctly applied the Bruen standard to strike down New Mexico’s waiting period
The Land of Enchantment requires that individuals purchasing weapons wait through a seven-day “cooling off” period before they may take possession.
This despite the background check stipulation already in place.
Props to the Tenth Circuit for the correct application of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen standard in determining New Mexico’s waiting period violated the Constitution. Of course, the state’s attorneys threw everything they could dig up at the panel to justify the law, no matter how irrelevant.
Like most anti-gun states, the best New Mexico could produce were discredited old laws from previous centuries that discriminated against certain unfavored groups. Not exactly the honorable precedent demanded by the Bruen test.
Not all celebrated the win for gun rights. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) expressed her anger over the appeals court ruling against her gun control regime.
“Today’s decision by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals is deeply disappointing, plainly wrong, and is likely to cost lives in New Mexico,” Grisham claimed in a statement. “New Mexico’s waiting period was carefully crafted to minimize gun violence while respecting Second Amendment rights.”
The governor went on to assert that dozens of lives per year are saved due to the state’s waiting period. She signed the mandate into law in May 2024.
Grisham should be accustomed by now to having her broad sides against the Second Amendment shot down in federal court. It was not long ago that she sparked tremendous controversy by arbitrarily declaring vast swaths of the state off-limits for firearms.
Even some in her own party joined a groundswell of law enforcement and outraged citizens protesting the encroachment. She was forced to sheepishly back down, and now she’s suffered another stinging defeat.
Her sentiment was not shared by State Sen. Bill Sharer (R), who blasted the current administration for trampling constitutional rights.
“The clear language of the Second Amendment says that ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED’. Sharer said in a statement. “Criminals certainly don’t wait seven days before breaking into our homes and threatening our families and properties…what sense does it make to require law-abiding citizens to wait seven days before being able to defend themselves?”
The case now heads back to the District Court for New Mexico for a preliminary injunction. As for Grisham, she will undoubtedly lick her wounds and be back for another attack on gun rights.
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