During the 2024 session, state representatives got a semiautomatic weapons ban through one committee but then it died without ever making it over to the Senate Chamber.
This year, state senator Debbie O’Malley introduced a new version of the bill, cosponsored by four other Democrats as Senate Bill 279.
Last week, supporters of the measure and other gun control bills rallied in the Statehouse rotunda.
One of them, Alexis Jimenez, the Moms Demand Action local lead for Rio Rancho and Sandoval counties, said she got involved with the group shortly after the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting that killed 26 people.
“ We want to keep our people safe," said Jimenez.
"We don't want to have to go to the grocery store and keep having to look around for emergency exits or people with weapons. And it's time to get weapons of war off of our streets.”
SB-279, the Gas-Operated Semiauto Firearms Exclusion Act, or GOSAFE would ban such guns, but would also outlaw high-capacity magazines and devices that increase a gun’s rate of fire to automatic-gun levels.
The measure would also require the attorney general to create a list of banned weapons and mandate certification for ones that don’t fall under the ban.
Representatives from Moms Demand Action and other groups, as well as school students, spoke in the rotunda gathering and at committee meetings during the day.
One of the students is a senior at Albuquerque’s Bosque School. Wesley Clum hopes to be a political economy major at UNM or another school.
“ I'm here today because as a student I don't, I don't want our schools to feel unsafe and I'm going off to college and I'd hope my college to feel unsafe," said Clum.
"And so today I'm here hoping that we can ban assault rifles in New Mexico, because that is what I think is one great step towards preventing a lot of people dying at one time, which is just—these are just terrible tragedies.
Clum said that, prior to enrolling at Bosque School, he went to a public middle school in Albuquerque that was often the site of lockdown drills and other safety exercises.
Opponents of the assault weapons ban claim that it’s unconstitutional and will punish lawful gun owners.
The bill will soon receive a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee but no date has been set yet.
