New Mexico’s Seven-Day Waiting Period Already Lost in the Tenth Circuit. NSSF, NRA and SAF Just Sued to Make the State Stop Enforcing It.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

ALBUQUERQUE, NM — Nine plaintiffs led by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the National Rifle Association of America, and the Second Amendment Foundation filed a federal lawsuit on October 19, 2026, asking a court to stop New Mexico from enforcing a seven-day firearm waiting period that the Tenth Circuit already held unconstitutional. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico as Case No. 1:26-cv-03514 and names Attorney General Raúl Torrez, in his official capacity, as the sole defendant. The New Mexico Firearms Industry Association, the New Mexico Shooting Sports Association, Calibers Shooting Sports Center, Omni Tactical USA, Right to Bear Arms, and Peter Hackett round out the plaintiff list.

When the district court ruled on remand in August, I covered it: Federal Judge Still Thinks New Mexico’s Seven-Day Gun Waiting Period Is Constitutional. He Blocked It Anyway Because the Tenth Circuit Tied His Hands. What is new is the plaintiffs’ allegation that the judgment did not end the matter. The complaint opens by saying the plaintiffs “regret that they have been left with no choice but to file this lawsuit,” and NSSF’s announcement frames the filing as the response to a governor ignoring court rulings that declared the law unconstitutional. NRA-ILA’s post calls it, pointedly, another lawsuit over the same law.

The law is House Bill 129, enacted in 2024 and codified at N.M. Stat. §30-7-7.3. According to the complaint, it forces buyers who have already passed the federal background check to wait out an additional multi-day “cooling off” period before they can take possession of a firearm. A waiting period is a purchase rule rather than a carry rule, so it changes nothing in my New Mexico concealed carry guide, but the people standing at the counter are the same people who carry.

The complaint lays out the history the plaintiffs say the state is refusing to honor. In 2025 the Tenth Circuit issued a published, precedential opinion in Ortega v. Grisham holding HB129 unconstitutional “both facial[ly] and as-applied,” except as to buyers whose background checks are not cleared within three days. Facially means the law itself fails, not just its use against one person; as-applied means it also fails in the specific way it was used against the Ortega plaintiffs. The one carve-out the court left was for the buyer whose check is still pending after three days. New Mexico asked the full Tenth Circuit to rehear the case en banc, meaning all of the court’s active judges rather than a three-judge panel, and was turned down by a vote of 10 to 2.

Then, on August 26, 2026, the district court on remand granted the Ortega plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, a ruling made without a trial because the key facts were not in dispute. That motion asked for a judgment declaring HB129 unconstitutional as applied to anyone who passes the federal background check, and according to the complaint the court granted it without reservation.

“That should have been the end of any contention by New Mexico that it can continue enforcing HB129,” the complaint says. The plaintiffs point out that the Tenth Circuit called the law “obviously unconstitutional” and described the violation as “broad and clear,” that a final judgment now memorializes that holding, and that New Mexico’s own constitution, at Article XX, Section 1, binds state officials by oath to support the Constitution. The relief they want is declaratory and injunctive: a formal declaration that HB129 is unconstitutional and an order barring the Attorney General from enforcing it.

To be clear, these are allegations in a complaint. The state has not answered, and no court has ruled on this filing. Everything the plaintiffs say about New Mexico’s conduct after the Ortega judgment is their account, and the Attorney General will get his chance to respond.

More from USA Carry:

• Federal Judge Still Thinks New Mexico’s Seven-Day Gun Waiting Period Is Constitutional. He Blocked It Anyway Because the Tenth Circuit Tied His Hands.
• South Dakota Governor Urges ATF to Remove Obsolete Suppressor Shipping Rule
• A Federal Court Threw Out New Jersey’s Rifle and Magazine Bans. The State Is Asking to Keep Enforcing Them Anyway
• Thirteen Senators Demand Trump Administration Stop Enforcing Biden Pistol Brace Rule
• New Mexico Argued a Federal Judge Did Not Have to Follow the Appeals Court. He Blocked the State’s Gun Waiting Period Anyway

What stands out to me is how little of this complaint is about the Second Amendment. The constitutional question was argued and decided in Ortega, and the complaint simply cites that work. What the plaintiffs are really asking is whether a state can lose a published appellate decision, lose a rehearing vote 10 to 2, lose on remand, and still keep a law in operation. Compare that to Florida, which agreed to kill its three-day waiting period and conceded it violates the Second Amendment. One state read the case law and folded. The other, if the plaintiffs are right, read the same case law applied directly to its own statute and kept going. That is why there are nine plaintiffs on this caption instead of one. Part of a serious ownership mindset is knowing that a win in court is not the same as a win at the counter until the state actually stops.

I will continue tracking NSSF v. Torrez as it moves through the District of New Mexico.

Read the original story: New Mexico’s Seven-Day Waiting Period Already Lost in the Tenth Circuit. NSSF, NRA and SAF Just Sued to Make the State Stop Enforcing It.