New Mexico Moms Demand Action, Everytown Applaud New Mexico Senate Judiciary Committee for Advancing Extreme Risk Legislation to Senate Floor
2.6.2020
SB5 Would Enact an Extreme Risk Law in New Mexico
SANTA FE, New Mexico – The New Mexico chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a part of Everytown for Gun Safety, today applauded the Senate Judiciary Committee for advancing Senate Bill 5, legislation to enact an extreme risk law in New Mexico. The committee vote comes on the heels of the New Mexico chapter’s advocacy day, where nearly 40 Moms Demand Action volunteers spent the day at the Roundhouse meeting with lawmakers and urging them to pass extreme risk protection order legislation.
“Extreme risk laws are common-sense solutions that have been proven to save lives,” said Lorian Kostranchuk, M.D., a volunteer with the New Mexico chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. “By advancing this legislation to the Senate floor, our lawmakers are showing us that they’re committed to helping create ways for New Mexicans to act before warning signs escalate into tragedies. We’re grateful to the lawmakers who continue to push this important bill forward.”
On January 8, 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.
Extreme risk laws have been proven to save lives – especially reducing suicide. 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.