Advocates mark third anniversary of Farmington shooting, renew gun-ban push

Three years after an 18-year-old Farmington High School student opened fire near Dustin Avenue and Navajo Street, killing three women and wounding six others, gun safety advocates are pressing state and federal leaders to turn anniversary statements into law.

Police said the attack began about 10:56 a.m. on May 15, 2023, when Beau Wilson opened fire in a residential neighborhood. Officers were dispatched at 10:57 a.m. and arrived by 11:02 a.m., but not before Wilson had killed Shirley Voita, 79, Melody Ivie, 73, and Gwendolyn Schofield, 97. Two Farmington police officers were also wounded. Investigators said the victims appeared to have been random targets.

The three women became the faces of the tragedy in different corners of Farmington life. Schofield had been a teacher before retirement. Ivie owned and operated a preschool for about 40 years and served Farmington families across generations. Voita worked as a school nurse, caring for local students. Their deaths left the city with a permanent reminder that the shooting reached into the ordinary rhythms of a school district, a neighborhood and a late-morning street where residents expected safety.

Advocacy groups used the third anniversary to renew the same request they made after the shooting: an assault weapons ban. Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action have said Wilson legally purchased an AR-15 in 2022 and bought additional ammunition just days before the attack. The groups have argued that New Mexico should not wait for another mass shooting before tightening access to military-style firearms.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham also pushed for a tougher response after the Farmington attack, calling for laws that would raise the minimum age to buy firearms and ban assault weapons. In the Legislature, the issue has moved but not settled. Lawmakers introduced SB 279 in 2025, the Gas-Operated Semiautomatic Firearms Exclusion Act, and a similar sweeping measure, SB 17, advanced in the Senate in 2026 before stalling in the House.

The political fight sits against a bleak backdrop. New Mexico ranked No. 2 in the nation for firearm death rate in 2024, after ranking No. 3 in 2022. For Farmington, San Juan County and state officials, the third anniversary has become less a memorial than a measure of whether they will treat the shooting as a turning point or another date that passes without the policy changes survivors and advocates have demanded.