The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that New Mexico’s seven-day waiting period for firearm purchases is unconstitutional. This case is known as Ortega v. Grisham, and it was brought by the NRA and others.
The case centered around New Mexico’s law that requires a period of seven days to pass after the purchase of a firearm so that the purchaser may “cool off” before they can take possession of the purchased firearm. This is even after passing a background check showing they are not prohibited from owning the firearm.
The Tenth Circuit held that the New Mexico law violates the Second Amendment.
“Cooling-off periods infringe on the Second Amendment by preventing the lawful acquisition of firearms. Cooling-off periods do not fit into any historically grounded exceptions to the right to keep and bear arms, and burden conduct within the Second Amendment’s scope. In this preliminary posture, we conclude that New Mexico’s Waiting Period Act is likely an unconstitutional burden on the Second Amendment rights of its citizens,” wrote Judge Timothy Tymkovich in the decision.
The decision also concluded that waiting periods are a modern invention that are unsupported by our nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
New Mexico had offered several historical analogues, including intoxication laws, licensing regimes and more, but all were found insufficient to justify the waiting-period law. The historical intoxication laws were deemed improper as they prevented the possession of a firearm only during the period of intoxication, not for an arbitrarily determined period like seven days. Second, the seven-day waiting period law is unlike licensing regimes, the court noted, because it assumes that everyone who purchases a firearm is inherently dangerous until they “cooled off.”
“In courtrooms across America, the NRA is successfully leading the charge to protect law-abiding Americans’ Second Amendment rights,” said John Commerford, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (ILA). “The 10th Circuit has sided with the NRA and held that radical waiting period laws are indeed unconstitutional. This decision not only impacts gun owners in New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma, but serves as a key piece in dismantling similar gun control laws across the country.”
The case will now return to the District Court for the District of New Mexico for the entry of a preliminary injunction.
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