The long-running litigation between activist James “James Freeman” Springer and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham came to an apparent end on Thursday with the release of an appeals court ruling against the YouTuber.
In September of 2023 Governor Lujan Grisham issued an emergency public health order that temporarily banned firearms in the city of Alburquerque and Bernalillo County for 30 days.
The governor said this was in response to multiple mass shootings in the area and received resistance from gun rights groups and local officials who refused to enforce the policy.
A number of lawsuits challenged the order and most, including one brought by the National Rifle Association (NRA) were dropped when the governor later amended the rule to apply to playgrounds and areas where children gathered.
Springer sued, essentially stating that it was unconstitutional to ban guns from public places and that he needed his firearm for protection when he took his kids to playgrounds in the Alburquerque area, despite not living in that area.
The lawsuit raged on for most of the last quarter of 2023 and into early 2024, with Springer losing multiple motions for preliminary injunctions to stop the order, before going dormant in January of 2024 as Springer appealed the ruling.
In the nearly two-year period that the litigation sat dormant, most of the other lawsuits were resolved with multiple courts upholding the Governor’s right to issue the emergency health order.
Lujan Grisham herself stated in 2024 that she had no intention of revisiting the gun ban after the original ban expired on its own. Springer has also since relocated to Arizona, where he has become the most prolific First Amendment auditor in the state since the retirement of Lane Myers.
Thursday’s release of an early October appeal’s court filing was another win for the governor as Springer was savaged in the ruling issued by a three-judge panel, with Judge Allison H. Eid writing the opinion.
The Court found that Springer did not demonstrate that he had standing to challenge the public parks and playgrounds restrictions. She found that Springer had no concrete plans to actually visit parks and playgrounds in the area, nor did he have an actual or imminent injury as there were already laws in place prohibiting carrying of firearms in parks and playgrounds.
Judge Eid wrote: “Springer’s allegations fall well short of establishing “concrete plans” to visit any park or playground subject to the public health order. Start with the playgrounds restriction. Nothing in Springer’s complaint or in his declaration evinces an intent to visit a playground with a firearm. He does not identify a single specific playground that he intends to visit, nor does he specify a date upon which he plans to make such a visit. In fact, neither document even mentions the word “playground.” The closest Springer gets is in his verified motion where he states that he “wishes to carry firearms in . . . playgrounds” at some unspecified point in the future.
But that statement is nowhere near the level of specificity required to show imminence. As we have held, “[s]peculative plans or vague intentions to potentially violate the challenged [law] are” simply “insufficient” to satisfy the requirement of imminent injury. Rocky Mountain Gun Owners v. Polis, 121 F.4th 96, 110 (10th Cir. 2024) (emphasis in original); see Lujan, 504 U.S. at 564 (holding that a mere “intent” to visit certain countries with threatened species in the future was insufficient to confer standing because “such some day intentions—without any description of concrete plans, or indeed even any specification of when the some day will be—do not support a finding of the actual or imminent injury” required for standing (internal quotation marks omitted)); Summers, 555 U.S. at 496 (concluding that a “vague desire” to visit several unnamed national forests in the future is not an imminent injury to confer standing). Without more, we are left to speculate whether Springer will actually visit a playground covered by the public health order and, consequently, whether he faces an imminent injury.”
She went on to state, ” the mere fact that Springer “had visited” the parks in the past “proves nothing” about whether Springer will visit the parks in the future. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 564. As the Supreme Court has explained, when a plaintiff seeks forward-looking relief, past events “are relevant only for their predictive value.” Murthy, 603 U.S. at 59. And here, Springer does not link his past visits to future visits in any meaningful way. He has not stated that the sports competitions or balloon fiesta are recurring events, nor has he assured us that future iterations of these recreational activities will take place in a park subject to the order. In fact, he has not identified “any particular [park]” where these activities occur, significantly undermining his claim of imminent injury. Summers, 555 U.S. at 495. Therefore, this statement alone does not establish standing.”
The ruling also found that Springer could not show that he would overcome the multiple state and local laws and ordinances that banned guns from parks and playgrounds in the area.
With the case now back in the lower court, it is likely to be dismissed based upon the appeals court’s findings.
