Federal appeals court halts New Mexico's seven-day gun waiting period, says it's 'likely' unconstitutional

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Federal appeals court halts New Mexico's seven-day gun waiting period, says it's 'likely' unconstitutional

• By Nicholas Gilmore [email protected]
• Aug 19, 2025 Updated 11 hrs ago

Federal appeals court halts New Mexico's seven-day gun waiting period, says it's 'likely' unconstitutional

The waiting period — passed into law last year — will be put on hold until the legal challenge by two state residents is resolved in a lower federal court.

www.santafenewmexican.com

"
A federal appellate court Tuesday landed a heavy blow against a New Mexico law requiring a seven-day waiting period for firearms purchases.

The ruling, which questions the constitutionality of the waiting period, could affect similar laws in place in states across the country.

Tuesday's ruling means New Mexico's gun purchase waiting period — passed into law last year — will be put on hold until the legal challenge by two state residents is resolved in a lower federal court. But the ruling also provides a signal of the how the court is likely to rule on the law.

Judges from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver reversed a lower court decision to deny a injunction against New Mexico's Waiting Period Act, which requires a seven-day "cooling-off period" for purchases of guns throughout the state, with some exceptions for concealed carry permit-holders and law enforcement officers and sales between immediate family members.
An order issued by the appellate court Tuesday states the law is "likely an unconstitutional burden on the Second Amendment rights of its citizens..."

 

[LVSteve]

Can they toss out the rule on carrying a second concealed pistol while they're in the mood.

 

[ladder13]

Can they toss out the rule on carrying a second concealed pistol while they're in the mood.

What?

 

[HeyJoe]

What?

In New Mexico you can only conceal carry one firearm at a time

 

[Rocketmedic40]

So i actually have some input on this:

Although I agree it's not necessarily consistent with the Constitution, I think there is absolutely a case to be made for imposing a reasonable waiting period on **specific** weapons, such as a semi-automatic rifle or pistol, or a weapon with a magazine in excess of 10 rounds, for persons under the age of 25 and whom do not possess a license to carry or have an active affiliation with a law-enforcement organization or the written approval of a chief of police/sheriff/etc.

yes, it's an infringement. But waiting periods for youth can help to interrupt episodes of psychosis, and it isn't unreasonable to ask for someone to wait 1-2 weeks before picking up a weapon designed to burn through bullets like it's going through Fallujah '04. Just my 0.02 cents…

 

[Goldstar225]

So i actually have some input on this:

Although I agree it's not necessarily consistent with the Constitution, I think there is absolutely a case to be made for imposing a reasonable waiting period on **specific** weapons, such as a semi-automatic rifle or pistol, or a weapon with a magazine in excess of 10 rounds, for persons under the age of 25 and whom do not possess a license to carry or have an active affiliation with a law-enforcement organization or the written approval of a chief of police/sheriff/etc.

yes, it's an infringement. But waiting periods for youth can help to interrupt episodes of psychosis, and it isn't unreasonable to ask for someone to wait 1-2 weeks before picking up a weapon designed to burn through bullets like it's going through Fallujah '04. Just my 0.02 cents…

No, just no.

 

[Rocketmedic40]

No, just no.

I I mean, it's just an idea. Clearly, armed guards and thoughts and prayers are less effective than we'd like to see, and I think there's a strong argument to be made that freedom is not necessarily the thunder dome either. I think that sensible nationwide legislation that somewhat throttled immediate access to certain weapons might help mitigate some of the worst tragedies, particularly if it's coupled with carrots, like nationwide concealed carry reciprocity in constitutional hard stops to protect the right to bear arms, ammunition, and ensure that states or municipalities cannot creatively use laws to remove weapons.

Same as every other gun control argument – the absolutists on both sides will ruin everything for everyone because they will take a maximalist approach and refuse to even consider the consequences of their desires.

We gun people have had it pretty good for the past 10 years. A relatively 2A friendly government has been in power, we've had some court cases go our way, and the American public is largely become frustrated, and given up on the more grandiose streams of the baby boomer generation with regards to gun control. But, our community has largely squandered those victories. We have no far reaching legislation to protect them, just court cases that can be overturned by law or by a different court. We have not codified national protections for gun owners in any meaningful sense via legislation, and we have allowed ourselves to become distracted by novelty toys like binary triggers. Our community squanderers political capital by trying to defend the stupidest and most gratuitous excesses of gun owners. Then we double down on hard-core partisanship by largely choosing the Republican Party and dismissing any prospect of Democrat support for gun rights, even as the social and political pendulum slowly swings away from Donald Trump and the Republicans. It's exactly like a championship team blowing most of the salary cap on an aging running back when half the defense just hit free agency.

And someday, that recalcitrant defiance and failure to actually win is going to hurt us badly. The kids who grew up with school shootings as a real possibility are now voters, the elders who remember the student rifle club are hitting nursing homes and disappearing from the public. Our community has done very little to foster any non-military positive connection with firearms for the vast majority of America's youth for my generation onward. And because we have so foolishly put gun rights as a partisan litmus test, and so steadfastly refused to even consider any sort of address for the legitimate grievances of our fellow citizens, we is a gun community are eventually going to reap the consequences of our stubborn behavior. And we will deserve it.

I'm in my mid 30s. I have a fairly decent collection of firearms, and I like to think of myself as a responsible gun user. Plenty of us are out there, but we are also not immune to the pressures of society, and at the end of the day, we do have a tomorrow that we need to accommodate for. If some political and legislative horse trading can get me the legislative wins for the things at the core of the second amendment, I think there is ample room for compromise to introduce things that are scientifically demonstrated to reduce the incidents of misuse and limit the accessibility of weapons to people who objectively should not have them.

I'm not talking about gun bans, or registrations or licenses, or confiscation. I'm talking about rationed access to firearms that are objectively capable of putting out far more fire power than is needed for any conceivable hunting or self-defense need. Just like how we don't allow untrained people to get behind the wheel of a truck going down the freeway, we as a society don't necessarily benefit from a 23 year-old mentally ill person buying a rifle mechanically capable of firing hundreds of bullets in 2 to 3 minutes into a crowded building. Sad fact of the matter is, that doesn't happen with a manually actioned firearm, not to the same extent.

Descriptions of the scene from the first responders to Sandy Hook described the bathroom at the class that got annihilated as a "blender", where the shooter had dumped magazines into densely packed kindergartners. That's a terrible demonstration of the lethal efficiency of modern firearms design. And I'm not saying that we should ban those as a society. I'm just pointing out that the performance offered by weapons platforms like that is in the public interest to regulate, just like how we is a public regulate, our freedom to travel by banning bicycles from interstate freeways and keeping commercial jet liners from the hands of the untrained while flying over our homes.

I fully expect the mods to delete this because it's not along the lines of conventional orthodoxy on this board, and I apologize if it does seem political. To reiterate, I think that striking down the New Mexico waiting Period is a bad
idea, because I think the state was on to something.

 

[LVSteve]

What?

Yes, you are only allowed to carry one concealed weapon at a time in New Mexico. It's the sort of thing you discover when checking reciprocity before traveling.

The other "gotcha" is whether you are required to inform an officer that you are armed at first contact. Mind you, I think it is a good plan whether a state requires it or not.

 

[Rocketmedic40]

Yes, you are only allowed to carry one concealed weapon at a time in New Mexico. It's the sort of thing you discover when checking reciprocity before traveling.

The other "gotcha" is whether you are required to inform an officer that you are armed at first contact. Mind you, I think it is a good plan whether a state requires it or not.

I mean, seems a bit silly, but also totally inconsequential. Open carry is legal there right?

 

[LVSteve]

I mean, seems a bit silly, but also totally inconsequential. Open carry is legal there right?

No idea. I wouldn't open carry in a city/town in NM anyway. Too many characters that look good for a gun grab in my view.

 

[dickydalton]

The Gubner and her henchmen are ignoring this ruling.

 

[Dave Haynes]

I I mean, it's just an idea. Clearly, armed guards and thoughts and prayers are less effective than we'd like to see, and I think there's a strong argument to be made that freedom is not necessarily the thunder dome either. I think that sensible nationwide legislation that somewhat throttled immediate access to certain weapons might help mitigate some of the worst tragedies, particularly if it's coupled with carrots, like nationwide concealed carry reciprocity in constitutional hard stops to protect the right to bear arms, ammunition, and ensure that states or municipalities cannot creatively use laws to remove weapons.

Same as every other gun control argument – the absolutists on both sides will ruin everything for everyone because they will take a maximalist approach and refuse to even consider the consequences of their desires.

We gun people have had it pretty good for the past 10 years. A relatively 2A friendly government has been in power, we've had some court cases go our way, and the American public is largely become frustrated, and given up on the more grandiose streams of the baby boomer generation with regards to gun control. But, our community has largely squandered those victories. We have no far reaching legislation to protect them, just court cases that can be overturned by law or by a different court. We have not codified national protections for gun owners in any meaningful sense via legislation, and we have allowed ourselves to become distracted by novelty toys like binary triggers. Our community squanderers political capital by trying to defend the stupidest and most gratuitous excesses of gun owners. Then we double down on hard-core partisanship by largely choosing the Republican Party and dismissing any prospect of Democrat support for gun rights, even as the social and political pendulum slowly swings away from Donald Trump and the Republicans. It's exactly like a championship team blowing most of the salary cap on an aging running back when half the defense just hit free agency.

And someday, that recalcitrant defiance and failure to actually win is going to hurt us badly. The kids who grew up with school shootings as a real possibility are now voters, the elders who remember the student rifle club are hitting nursing homes and disappearing from the public. Our community has done very little to foster any non-military positive connection with firearms for the vast majority of America's youth for my generation onward. And because we have so foolishly put gun rights as a partisan litmus test, and so steadfastly refused to even consider any sort of address for the legitimate grievances of our fellow citizens, we is a gun community are eventually going to reap the consequences of our stubborn behavior. And we will deserve it.

I'm in my mid 30s. I have a fairly decent collection of firearms, and I like to think of myself as a responsible gun user. Plenty of us are out there, but we are also not immune to the pressures of society, and at the end of the day, we do have a tomorrow that we need to accommodate for. If some political and legislative horse trading can get me the legislative wins for the things at the core of the second amendment, I think there is ample room for compromise to introduce things that are scientifically demonstrated to reduce the incidents of misuse and limit the accessibility of weapons to people who objectively should not have them.

I'm not talking about gun bans, or registrations or licenses, or confiscation. I'm talking about rationed access to firearms that are objectively capable of putting out far more fire power than is needed for any conceivable hunting or self-defense need. Just like how we don't allow untrained people to get behind the wheel of a truck going down the freeway, we as a society don't necessarily benefit from a 23 year-old mentally ill person buying a rifle mechanically capable of firing hundreds of bullets in 2 to 3 minutes into a crowded building. Sad fact of the matter is, that doesn't happen with a manually actioned firearm, not to the same extent.

Descriptions of the scene from the first responders to Sandy Hook described the bathroom at the class that got annihilated as a "blender", where the shooter had dumped magazines into densely packed kindergartners. That's a terrible demonstration of the lethal efficiency of modern firearms design. And I'm not saying that we should ban those as a society. I'm just pointing out that the performance offered by weapons platforms like that is in the public interest to regulate, just like how we is a public regulate, our freedom to travel by banning bicycles from interstate freeways and keeping commercial jet liners from the hands of the untrained while flying over our homes.

I fully expect the mods to delete this because it's not along the lines of conventional orthodoxy on this board, and I apologize if it does seem political. To reiterate, I think that striking down the New Mexico waiting Period is a bad
idea, because I think the state was on to something.

The usual response of ersatz gun guys is "We need to have a conversation about gun control". Well, we've been having one for the last 50 years and it's the same old story..."Reasonable restrictions"? Reasonable to who? The real problem with guns and everything else in America is Lawyers. Everything we do, say, eat, buy, sell, gets lawyers involved. It is why you buy a power washer and inside is a book of 20 pages of complete crap to cover the manufacturer's behind from some ambulance chaser. Everything the voters approve is subject to the approval of lawyers. Appointed judges do their best to control things regardless of what the people want. Don't forget that the judges are lawyers, the prosecutors and defenders are all lawyers, the dopes who write these stupid laws are lawyers....it's a club and we are not in it. Lawyers add almost nothing but they take every time. This country is a confused mess because of all of these non-additive important people...Old people like me remember what a free country looked like and we are anything but free today...

 

[Rocketmedic40]

The usual response of ersatz gun guys is "We need to have a conversation about gun control". Well, we've been having one for the last 50 years and it's the same old story..."Reasonable restrictions"? Reasonable to who? The real problem with guns and everything else in America is Lawyers. Everything we do, say, eat, buy, sell, gets lawyers involved. It is why you buy a power washer and inside is a book of 20 pages of complete crap to cover the manufacturer's behind from some ambulance chaser. Everything the voters approve is subject to the approval of lawyers. Appointed judges do their best to control things regardless of what the people want. Don't forget that the judges are lawyers, the prosecutors and defenders are all lawyers, the dopes who write these stupid laws are lawyers....it's a club and we are not in it. Lawyers add almost nothing but they take every time. This country is a confused mess because of all of these non-additive important people...Old people like me remember what a free country looked like and we are anything but free today...

I can't remember the last time a lawyer with a pressure washer turned a class of grade schoolers into chunky salsa. Or made an outdoor concert a massacre site. Or made banking, food service, or a movie into a lethal event.

 

[KenTheHunter]

What?

Took the words right out of my mouth

 

[Dave Haynes]

I can't remember the last time a lawyer with a pressure washer turned a class of grade schoolers into chunky salsa. Or made an outdoor concert a massacre site. Or made banking, food service, or a movie into a lethal event.

Well said. I'll just point out that someone somewhere taught all of these misbehaved wackos that it's normal to be sociopaths and freaks, Parents probably but there's always a legal solution to everything. What's the first thing a shop lifter or shooter has to yell at the cops when they are being handcuffed. "I want to call my lawyer" like they actually have one on retainer...When I was growing up, TV programs were sponsored by Wonder Bread, Chevrolet, Magnavox etc. Now it's drug companies and lawyers "Call us and we'll tell you what your case is really worth"...

 

[Rocketmedic40]

Well said. I'll just point out that someone somewhere taught all of these misbehaved wackos that it's normal to be sociopaths and freaks, Parents probably but there's always a legal solution to everything. What's the first thing a shop lifter or shooter has to yell at the cops when they are being handcuffed. "I want to call my lawyer" like they actually have one on retainer...When I was growing up, TV programs were sponsored by Wonder Bread, Chevrolet, Magnavox etc. Now it's drug companies and lawyers "Call us and we'll tell you what your case is really worth"...

Brother, I suspect you're having a senior moment. Violent crime, to include mass shootings, was a thing back in the Wonder Bread Era too. We literally built federal law enforcement because dudes and dudettes in Model A Fords made literal highway robbery a thing like it was the 13th Century, but with Tommy guns and sawed-off double-barrels. And if you really want to go back to the Magnavox Happy Fun Time Radio Hour and the Marlboro Rose-Colored Nostalgia Wheel, you'll remember that a lot of people, particularly black people, were arrested for "crimes" they may or may not have committed and were tried expeditiously and highly informally, often with lethal results. That's why we have lawyers, and a stout, well-defined legal process, and protections for the accused at every step of the process. I'm not saying we should coddle people, but while you're waxing nostalgia, you should probably look at why things changed.

It ain't lawyers that are causing our society's current problems with violence and irresponsibility.

 

[Lt.Donn]

I I mean, it's just an idea. Clearly, armed guards and thoughts and prayers are less effective than we'd like to see, and I think there's a strong argument to be made that freedom is not necessarily the thunder dome either. I think that sensible nationwide legislation that somewhat throttled immediate access to certain weapons might help mitigate some of the worst tragedies, particularly if it's coupled with carrots, like nationwide concealed carry reciprocity in constitutional hard stops to protect the right to bear arms, ammunition, and ensure that states or municipalities cannot creatively use laws to remove weapons.

Same as every other gun control argument – the absolutists on both sides will ruin everything for everyone because they will take a maximalist approach and refuse to even consider the consequences of their desires.

We gun people have had it pretty good for the past 10 years. A relatively 2A friendly government has been in power, we've had some court cases go our way, and the American public is largely become frustrated, and given up on the more grandiose streams of the baby boomer generation with regards to gun control. But, our community has largely squandered those victories. We have no far reaching legislation to protect them, just court cases that can be overturned by law or by a different court. We have not codified national protections for gun owners in any meaningful sense via legislation, and we have allowed ourselves to become distracted by novelty toys like binary triggers. Our community squanderers political capital by trying to defend the stupidest and most gratuitous excesses of gun owners. Then we double down on hard-core partisanship by largely choosing the Republican Party and dismissing any prospect of Democrat support for gun rights, even as the social and political pendulum slowly swings away from Donald Trump and the Republicans. It's exactly like a championship team blowing most of the salary cap on an aging running back when half the defense just hit free agency.

And someday, that recalcitrant defiance and failure to actually win is going to hurt us badly. The kids who grew up with school shootings as a real possibility are now voters, the elders who remember the student rifle club are hitting nursing homes and disappearing from the public. Our community has done very little to foster any non-military positive connection with firearms for the vast majority of America's youth for my generation onward. And because we have so foolishly put gun rights as a partisan litmus test, and so steadfastly refused to even consider any sort of address for the legitimate grievances of our fellow citizens, we is a gun community are eventually going to reap the consequences of our stubborn behavior. And we will deserve it.

I'm in my mid 30s. I have a fairly decent collection of firearms, and I like to think of myself as a responsible gun user. Plenty of us are out there, but we are also not immune to the pressures of society, and at the end of the day, we do have a tomorrow that we need to accommodate for. If some political and legislative horse trading can get me the legislative wins for the things at the core of the second amendment, I think there is ample room for compromise to introduce things that are scientifically demonstrated to reduce the incidents of misuse and limit the accessibility of weapons to people who objectively should not have them.

I'm not talking about gun bans, or registrations or licenses, or confiscation. I'm talking about rationed access to firearms that are objectively capable of putting out far more fire power than is needed for any conceivable hunting or self-defense need. Just like how we don't allow untrained people to get behind the wheel of a truck going down the freeway, we as a society don't necessarily benefit from a 23 year-old mentally ill person buying a rifle mechanically capable of firing hundreds of bullets in 2 to 3 minutes into a crowded building. Sad fact of the matter is, that doesn't happen with a manually actioned firearm, not to the same extent.

Descriptions of the scene from the first responders to Sandy Hook described the bathroom at the class that got annihilated as a "blender", where the shooter had dumped magazines into densely packed kindergartners. That's a terrible demonstration of the lethal efficiency of modern firearms design. And I'm not saying that we should ban those as a society. I'm just pointing out that the performance offered by weapons platforms like that is in the public interest to regulate, just like how we is a public regulate, our freedom to travel by banning bicycles from interstate freeways and keeping commercial jet liners from the hands of the untrained while flying over our homes.

I fully expect the mods to delete this because it's not along the lines of conventional orthodoxy on this board, and I apologize if it does seem political. To reiterate, I think that striking down the New Mexico waiting Period is a bad
idea, because I think the state was on to something.

Believe me, after living (& training CHL) there for 15 yrs, NM is definitely on to something....but only if it infringes upon our rights.

 

[roysha]

Brother, I suspect you're having a senior moment. Violent crime, to include mass shootings, was a thing back in the Wonder Bread Era too. We literally built federal law enforcement because dudes and dudettes in Model A Fords made literal highway robbery a thing like it was the 13th Century, but with Tommy guns and sawed-off double-barrels. And if you really want to go back to the Magnavox Happy Fun Time Radio Hour and the Marlboro Rose-Colored Nostalgia Wheel, you'll remember that a lot of people, particularly black people, were arrested for "crimes" they may or may not have committed and were tried expeditiously and highly informally, often with lethal results. That's why we have lawyers, and a stout, well-defined legal process, and protections for the accused at every step of the process. I'm not saying we should coddle people, but while you're waxing nostalgia, you should probably look at why things changed.

It ain't lawyers that are causing our society's current problems with violence and irresponsibility.

You're kidding, right? The mantra among defense lawyers is "justice be damned, it's all about getting the acquittal, regardless of guilt or innocence"

While I agree that perhaps a small percentage of lawyers are not causing the problem, the majority are sure as hell NOT helping the problem.

The problem is not guns, lawyers, teens, immature adults (an oxymoron if there ever was one) or AR-15 that, according to one news outlet, can spray 100s of rounds with just one pull of the trigger, it is the BREAK DOWN OF THE NUCLEAR FAMILY!! Until that is remedied, and I don't see it happening any time in the near future, thugs will be thugs whether they use guns, knives or rocks. And don't tell me that at least without a gun they can't do as much damage. I'm 83 years old and I have great grandchildren that are just as susceptible to harm as I am. If you think I can hold my own with some younger individual who is intent on wreaking havoc on my body, you are nuttier than a fruit cake.

Until EVERY gun in the world is gone, thugs will find them and misuse them. Waiting periods ONLY AFFECT THE LAW ABIDING, (and that is in a negative way) regardless of their age, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.

Please take your liberal crap to some other site because any time someone starts in with the "reasonable", "common sense" narrative, I immediately think, IDIOT. 99.999% of the time I'm right.

 

[Rocketmedic40]

Believe me, after living (& training CHL) there for 15 yrs, NM is definitely on to something....but only if it infringes upon our rights.

I think the broader problem that New Mexico is failing to solve, along with most other states, is that crime and violence are actually fairly separate.

Good. "well executed crime is quiet, profitable, and doesn't draw attention. The drug trade is a perfect example – the ones who do it right or never suspects in anything. The ones you do it wrong are the ones getting a shootouts, getting shot, burglarizing people, etc. It's not that a weapon isn't a useful tool for these people, but it is a tool used to further the overall mission.

People committing acts of violence, on the other hand, are using the weapon is a primary means to the end of the tool. It's still just a tool, but the entire motivation and use cases are radically different. All the bans and obstacles in the world won't ultimately change #1; they'll dance the dance of compliance if they need it and they'll likely never use it and if they do it's honestly probably a legitimate case of self-defense. #2, maybe, might be dissuaded by obstacles

 

[Rocketmedic40]

You're kidding, right? The mantra among defense lawyers is "justice be damned, it's all about getting the acquittal, regardless of guilt or innocence"

While I agree that perhaps a small percentage of lawyers are not causing the problem, the majority are sure as hell NOT helping the problem.

The problem is not guns, lawyers, teens, immature adults (an oxymoron if there ever was one) or AR-15 that, according to one news outlet, can spray 100s of rounds with just one pull of the trigger, it is the BREAK DOWN OF THE NUCLEAR FAMILY!! Until that is remedied, and I don't see it happening any time in the near future, thugs will be thugs whether they use guns, knives or rocks. And don't tell me that at least without a gun they can't do as much damage. I'm 83 years old and I have great grandchildren that are just as susceptible to harm as I am. If you think I can hold my own with some younger individual who is intent on wreaking havoc on my body, you are nuttier than a fruit cake.

Until EVERY gun in the world is gone, thugs will find them and misuse them. Waiting periods ONLY AFFECT THE LAW ABIDING, (and that is in a negative way) regardless of their age, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.

Please take your liberal crap to some other site because any time someone starts in with the "reasonable", "common sense" narrative, I immediately think, IDIOT. 99.999% of the time I'm right.

Plenty of good folks from broken homes and bad ones from nuclear families, brocifer. In fact, the rose-colorized "nuclear family" is quite literally a product of the Atomic Age alone…prior to that, it was normal for one or both parents to die early, remarry, blend families, kids to relatives, etc. The whole "nuclear family" concept from the Wonder Years where Mom stays home, Dad works 40-50 hours a week at a respectful job that keeps everyone fed and housed and the kids all salute the flag and play baseball and go out with Susie for Apple pie at the church bake sale might have existed for some people for like 15 years from the end of WW2 to the Sixties, at best, and even then it was largely a product of propaganda and American copium to make ourselves look better than the Russians.

It also has nothing to do with guns or violence.