New Mexico lawmakers revisit proposals to curb high levels of firearm crimes, trafficking

New Mexico state lawmakers on Thursday revisited legislative proposals to curb the state’s high rates of shootings and gun trafficking.

A bill in this year’s legislative session would have required firearm dealers to train their employees to recognize signs of gun trafficking, would have raised the minimum age of employment at gun stores to 21 and would require gun stores to keep detailed records of each sale. It died, though, after some lawmakers criticized a provision that would have banned the sale of certain types of firearms.

Leaders from the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, which was involved in crafting this year’s failed bill, spoke before the interim Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee again on Thursday. While they stopped short of endorsing a specific bill for the upcoming lawmaking session, which begins in January, they stressed the need for the Legislature to address New Mexico’s persistently high levels of gun crimes.

Retailers need to be trained to recognize the signs of trafficking, such as a customer who routinely buys guns in bulk and “straw purchases,” in which someone buys a gun and then later sells it to someone who is not legally allowed to purchase a firearm.

Lawmakers pitched the previous bill after a report from Everytown for Gun Safety found that New Mexico has an outsized problem with gun trafficking. It ranked New Mexico fifth in the nation for the highest rate of firearm homicides.

Police find the vast majority of guns used in crimes — 89% — in possession of someone other than the person who originally bought it at a store, Everytown for Gun Safety Senior Industry Advisor Marianna Mitchem said Thursday, adding that such statistics constitute clear signs of trafficking. Trafficking at that scale enables guns to quickly move across city, county and state lines, she said.

“When people engage in firearm trafficking activity, they don’t say, ‘Well, I bought this gun in Rio Rancho, so I’m only going to sell to people in Rio Rancho,’” Mitchem, a former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives official, said.

Mitchell credited the New Mexico Department of Justice with equipping police departments across the state with technology that can accurately trace guns and spent shell casings found at crime scenes. In August, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez announced that the initiative identified more than 500 crimes since it launched last year, including one gun that was used in 17 different crimes.

Nationally, gunfire is the leading cause of death for children and teenagers. New Mexico’s firearm mortality rate of 26.6 per 100,000 residents is among the highest in the nation, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Ryan Burt, the CEO of Calibers, an Albuquerque-based indoor shooting range, presented alongside Mitchell and pushed back that her report was meant to “scare people.”

He said that he subjects his employees to rigorous background checks and trains them to spot the signs of straw purchases and trafficking. He said he believes raising the cost to secure a federal firearm dealer license — which is $200 and then $90 to renew every three years — would be a more effective way to weed out bad actors.

“Make it $5,000. You’re going to get rid of half, if not more” of gun dealers, he said.

Burt also sits on the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Range and Retail Advisory Council. The foundation joined the Second Amendment Foundation earlier this month in suing New Mexico over its weeklong waiting period for gun sales. A federal judge in August found that the state couldn’t enforce the waiting period on two people who challenged the rule in 2024. 

State lawmakers on Thursday were split on the broader issue along party lines.

Rep. Stefani Lord (R-Sandia Park) said she believes business owners such as Burt are “very careful” in making sure they don’t sell to traffickers, because they could face stiff penalties if they don’t.

“There’s millions of us in New Mexico with firearms who are doing nothing wrong,” she said.

Democrats, including Rep. Andrea Romero (D-Santa Fe) who co-sponsored the anti-gun trafficking bill in this year’s legislative session, said the state ought to more closely regulate “the most deadly weapons in our society.”