(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Anti-Second Amendment Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s, D–N.M., ban on firearms in parks and playgrounds remained in effect after a federal judge declined to block it.
U.S. District Judge David Herrera Urias, an appointee of Joe Biden, denied a preliminary injunction on the ban, which applies to Albuquerque and surrounding Bernalillo County, sought by gun-rights groups, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In a Wednesday ruling, Urias said that playgrounds and parks are sensitive places that “are excepted from the Second Amendment’s commands.”
“The district court got this one very wrong,” Cameron Atkinson, a lawyer for We The Patriots USA, said.
We The Patriots USA are a group that advocates for Second Amendment rights. It was also one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Atkinson added that the plaintiffs plan to appeal the judge’s ruling.
The measure that prohibits people from carrying firearms in parks and playgrounds is a scaled-back version of a ban that was implemented by the state of New Mexico in September after Grisham declared a public health emergency due to “gun violence.”
An order was issued by the New Mexico Department of Health, which forbade people from carrying firearms, either openly or concealed, in public areas across Bernalillo County, the state’s most populous county.
Grisham tried excusing her desire to ban guns by saying that the ban was in response to “gun violence” in New Mexico, where firearms are the leading cause of death among children and teens, the Journal wrote.
Both gun-rights groups and New Mexico officials on state and local levels opposed the original measure by suing to stop the ban and saying that it would not be enforced if it becomes law, as Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen said when he explained that his office wouldn’t enforce the ban.
According to the Journal, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, a Democrat, refused to defend the state’s order from legal challenge.
A temporary injunction was issued by Urias that blocked the original version of the ban. Last week, the state modified its ban so that it now applies only to parks and playgrounds.
