New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham issued a ban on carrying guns in most public places in the Albuquerque area in September. It included declaring a public health emergency, along with gun buybacks, monthly inspections of firearms dealers statewide, and reports on gunshot victims at New Mexico hospitals. There has been a 7% decline in gunshots detected since the ban, but 24 more juveniles have been detained and not released in gun-related crimes than there would have been before the order, Scripps News reports. The controversial order came after children were killed in unrelated shootings.
Attacks on Lujan Grisham's order came from gun rights advocates and even some of her fellow Democrats in New Mexico, including the state's Attorney General. She's renewed the original 30-day order three times, but under court pressure reduced the area where guns are banned to parks and playgrounds in New Mexico's largest metropolitan area. Despite ongoing legal challenges in federal court, Lujan Grisham recently extended the order another 30 days. In a state with the third-highest gun deaths per capita in the U.S., Lujan Grisham is now pushing for more gun control bills in New Mexico's 2024 legislative session, including regulating assault-style weapons.