“Plaintiffs regret that they have been left with no choice but to file this lawsuit.”
That’s one of the first lines in a new complaint filed by a slew of gun rights organizations challenging New Mexico’s seven-day waiting period for firearm sales.
The second-of-its-kind lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in New Mexico, centers on both 2024’s House Bill 129 — which established a “cooling-off” period and made it a misdemeanor to defy it — and a federal judge’s recent ruling against the law in a separate case.
U.S. District Judge James Browning’s August order stated New Mexico could not enforce the waiting period for the two people who had filed the first lawsuit the day the law took effect. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed a notice to appeal the ruling last month.
“Essentially all New Mexico residents are still being subject to their constitutional rights being infringed by the New Mexico authorities based on the enforcement of a statute … [where] there’s binding case law that now says it’s unconstitutional,” said Bill Sack, senior director of legal operations at the Second Amendment Foundation — one of the plaintiffs in the new lawsuit.
The suit, which names Torrez as the sole defendant, seeks to expand the coverage of Browning’s ruling to include all of the plaintiff organizations and their members. These also include the National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, five other groups and NRA member Peter Hackett.
“In so doing, we start approaching what should be the actual coverage of the fact that this thing has now been struck down as unconstitutional to prevent the government from continuing to enforce it,” Sack said.
The state Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment.
“We haven’t yet been served and need time to evaluate before we comment,” a spokesperson for Lujan Grisham’s office wrote in an email.
New Mexico’s waiting period
Thirteen states have some form of firearm waiting period law, according to a 2026 review by Everytown Research and Policy.
New Mexico joined that group in 2024 when seven Democratic lawmakers put forth a bill to impose a seven-day waiting period “required for the sale of a firearm and the transfer of the firearm to the buyer.” During that time, the gun has to stay in possession of the seller or the entity conducting a background check.
Supporters said they hoped the law would curb New Mexico’s high rate of firearm-related deaths. In 2024, the state saw the second-highest rate of gun deaths — a category that includes homicides and suicides involving guns, as well as unintentional and police shootings — in the nation, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC estimates New Mexicans collectively lost more than 88,000 years of life to gun violence from 2018 to 2024.
Often, that violence disproportionately affects children. The state Department of Health in a fiscal impact report for HB 129 noted 140 children and teens died from firearm injuries from 2016 to 2020, including 68 suicides and 64 homicides.
Studies have shown that blocking immediate access to firearms can reduce some forms of gun violence. For instance, the fifth edition of RAND’s The Science of Gun Policy series, published in January, found “moderate evidence” that waiting periods reduce firearm suicides and total homicides, though it noted there is “limited evidence” they reduce total suicides or homicides by firearm.
“These studies underline the potential life-saving effects of mandatory waiting periods, which not only delay immediate access to firearms, thus preventing impulsive acts of violence, including suicides and homicides, but also allow law enforcement more time to complete background checks,” the Department of Health noted in the bill’s fiscal impact report.
However, the bill wasn’t without critics. It passed the state House and Senate with a handful of Democrats joining Republicans to vote against it.
Even as they prepared for the bill to become law, gun store owners argued it would “do no good at all” in stopping those determined to do bad from getting guns through illegal means, while infringing on the rights of law abiding citizens.
“You’re taking away a person’s right, not just to the Second Amendment and self-defense, but to their security, especially as things get crazier in the world,” John Brunner, who runs combination machine shop and gun manufacturing and sale outlet Brunner Industries LLC in Española, said in 2024.
The criticism has continued through the evolving legal action. Sack described the state’s continuous enforcement of the waiting period as “concerning” — and unique in the organization’s sea of more than 50 lawsuits across the country.
“The Second Amendment is a fundamental right that is afforded to all citizens in this country,” he said. “And for a federal circuit court to say that a particular law violates that fundamental right, and to have a governor and other government officials take to the media to say that they’re just going to continue to enforce an unconstitutional law is particularly stand-out.”
Lily Alexander is a state accountability reporter for The New Mexican and Searchlight New Mexico, focusing on equity and transparency. Her position is part of the New Mexican Public Service Journalism Fund, and her stories are available to all readers without a paywall.
