New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham made quite a splash with her September 8 "public health emergency order," which purported to suspend the right to bear arms in Albuquerque and surrounding Bernalillo County. But the reaction may have been different from the one she anticipated: Instead of lauding her courage in taking a bold step against the "epidemic" of gun violence, fellow Democrats noted that her ban was blatantly at odds with the U.S. Supreme Court's Second Amendment precedents—a point that a federal judge reinforced last week by issuing a temporary restraining order (TRO) that blocks enforcement of Lujan Grisham's edict.
In the TRO, U.S. District Judge David H. Urias, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, noted that the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen "will likely control in the instant case," which combines lawsuits by several Bernalillo County residents and various gun rights groups. In Bruen, the Court rejected New York's requirement that residents demonstrate "proper cause" before they were allowed to publicly carry guns for self-defense. The justices ruled that the Second Amendment "presumptively guarantees" the right to bear arms in public, requiring New York to demonstrate that its policy was "consistent with this Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation."
