New Mexico Moms Demand Action, Students Demand Action, Everytown Applaud New Mexico Senate For Passing Life-Saving Extreme Risk Legislation

SB 5 Would Enact an Extreme Risk Law in New Mexico

Senate Passage of SB 5 Comes Just Three Days After New Mexico Moms Demand Action Held Their Annual Advocacy Day Urging Lawmakers to Pass Extreme Risk Legislation

Extreme Risk Laws are a Powerful Tool for Preventing Mass Shootings, School Shootings, and Gun Suicides

SANTA FE, N.M.  – The New Mexico chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a part of Everytown for Gun Safety, today applauded the New Mexico Senate for passing Senate Bill 5, legislation to enact an extreme risk law in New Mexico. The bill now moves on to the House chamber for consideration. 

“The Senate’s passage of extreme risk legislation brings us one step closer to a safer state,” said Emilie De Angelis, a volunteer leader with the New Mexico chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. “This is the type of common-sense gun safety policy that will help temporarily keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them and help keep our communities safe. We’ll be working tirelessly to ensure that the New Mexico House takes up this legislation swiftly.”

“Gun suicide is responsible for the majority of gun deaths in New Mexico,” said Kaelee Sells, a volunteer leader with Las Cruces High School Students Demand Action. “Extreme risk legislation would help prevent gun suicides and make our communities safer by creating ways for law enforcement to act before warning signs escalate into tragedies. These laws have already helped save lives in states all across the country, and thanks to the lawmakers in the Senate, we are now one step closer to joining ranks with those states.”

In January, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced she would include gun safety legislation in her 2020 legislative agenda. Under an extreme risk law, law enforcement would be able to petition a court for an extreme risk protection order to temporarily remove guns from a person in crisis. Seventeen states and Washington, D.C. have already enacted extreme risk laws, and 12 of these laws have been passed since the tragic shooting in Parkland, Florida in 2018.  

On Tuesday, amid a winter snowstorm, the New Mexico chapter of Moms Demand Action held their annual advocacy day where nearly 40 volunteers spent the day at the Roundhouse meeting with more than 50 lawmakers and urging them to support extreme risk legislation. New Mexico has the seventh-highest rate of gun suicide in the country. Every year, nearly 250 people die by gun suicide in New Mexico, with an average of 35 hours between gun suicide deaths. In a moment of crisis, access to a gun can be the difference between life and death: about 90 percent of suicide attempts using a gun end in death, compared to four percent of suicide attempts that do not involve a firearm.

Statistics about gun violence in New Mexico are available here, and information on how New Mexico’s gun laws compared to other states overall is available here.