Santa Fe, N.M. — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham introduced Wednesday that she has ended an emergency public well being order that suspended the appropriate to hold weapons at public parks and playgrounds in New Mexico’s largest metro space.
The unique public well being order in September 2023 ignited a furor of public protests, prompted Republican requires the governor’s impeachment and widened divisions amongst high Democratic officers. It additionally sought to strengthen oversight of firearms gross sales and monitor illicit drug use at public colleges by means of the testing of wastewater – earlier than expiring on Saturday with out renewal.
“I’ve determined to permit the general public well being order to run out, however our combat to guard New Mexico communities from the risks posed by weapons and unlawful medicine will proceed,” Lujan Grisham mentioned.
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She described strides towards decreasing gun violence by means of gun buy-back applications, elevated arrests, the distribution of free gun-storage locks and a bigger inmate inhabitants at a county detention facility in Albuquerque.
She mentioned greater than 1,700 weapons have been collected by means of gun buybacks, CBS Albuquerque affiliate KRQE-TV experiences.
The governor’s preliminary order would have suspended gun-carry rights in most public locations within the Albuquerque space, however was scaled again to public parks and playgrounds with an exception to make sure entry to a municipal taking pictures vary park. Lujan Grisham mentioned she was responding to a sequence of shootings across the state that left youngsters useless.
Gun rights advocates filed an array of lawsuits and courtroom motions geared toward blocking gun restrictions that they are saying would deprive Albuquerque-area residents of 2nd Modification rights to hold in public for self-defense. The implications for pending lawsuits in federal courtroom had been unclear.
The standoff was one in every of many within the wake of a 2022 U.S. Supreme Courtroom choice increasing gun rights, as leaders in politically liberal-leaning states discover new avenues for restrictions.
The gun restrictions had been tied to a statistical threshold for violent crime that utilized solely to Albuquerque and the encircling space.
