Once upon a time, Colorado wasn't the worst state when it came to guns. They were a pretty rural state, which means that even with cities like Denver, many of their gun laws were what most of us could find tolerable.
Then everything changed. Now, they just passed a law that goes beyond anything remotely considered "reasonable, common sense gun laws."
Of course, they never actually mean reasonable or common sense is applicable with their preferred gun control laws, but the latest move in Colorado is so far off the rails that even some anti-gunners are likely shaking their heads.
The purchase, sale and manufacture of semiautomatic guns that accept detachable ammunition magazines would be banned in Colorado under a bill introduced Wednesday by Democrats on the first day of the state legislature’s 2025 lawmaking term.
Senate Bill 3 would affect many pistols and rifles, whose manufacturers don’t appear to make versions of the weapons without removable magazines.
The legislation also would outlaw rapid-fire trigger activators and bump stocks, which can make a semiautomatic firearm fire at a rate similar to that of an automatic weapon.
The measure would have an effect similar to — or even greater than — legislation that failed at the Capitol in recent years that would have banned the purchase, sale and manufacture of a broad swath of firearms, defined in those bills as assault weapons.
But Senate Bill 3 appears to have a better chance of reaching the governor’s desk given that it has the support of state Sen. Tom Sullivan, a Centennial Democrat whose son was murdered in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, and given the number of cosponsors it was introduced with.
The bill has 18 original cosponsors in the Senate, including all but five Democrats in the chamber. It needs 18 votes to pass the Senate.
In other words, there's no chance at all of it not passing the Senate since, presumably, all of the cosponsors will vote for the bill.
However, let's understand the scale of what this bill would actually do.
Most semiautomatic guns — pistols and rifles — accept detachable magazines.
That means weapons that would fall under the ban would include the AR-15 and its variants, as well as AK-47s, TEC-9s, Beretta Cx4 Storms, Sig Sauer SG550s, MAC-10s, and Derya MK-12s.
Other weapons that may be affected include the popular Smith & Wesson M&P 5.7 and Walther CCP, which are pistols. The measure specifically bans the sale, purchase and manufacture of gas-operated semiautomatic handguns.
The bill would give the attorney general the power to list which firearms would be prohibited under the measure. That appears to be an attempt to prevent manufacturers from finding loopholes in the law.
In other words, the most common type of firearm used for self-defense would be prohibited in the state.
Sure, if you've already got one, you can keep it, but then you're sort of stuck. That's because the text of the bill only allows for the following exceptions to transferring any such gun.
The bill prohibits knowingly manufacturing, distributing, transferring, selling, or purchasing a specified semiautomatic firearm; except that a person may transfer a specified semiautomatic firearm to an heir, an individual residing in another state, or a federally licensed firearm dealer.
That's from the text of the bill.
That means if you die, it can be passed onto your heir, it can be sold to an FFL who then can't do anything with it under the law, or it can be shipped out of state.
But everyone in Colorado knows that if this passes, it will be challenged almost immediately. What's more, based on what we have in the Bruen decision, it seems unlikely that the law will survive that challenge. If one has to find a parallel from the time of the nation's founding, you're going to have a difficult time finding a parallel that resulted in the ban of an entire category of weapons like this.
This goes beyond a simple assault weapon ban. This bans literally every semi-automatic rifle and handgun on the market. That means people in Colorado will be relegated to nothing but revolvers, bolt-actions, and lever-actions if they want a repeating firearm for hunting or self-defense.
Sure, at first, plenty of people will still have those guns, but that's not going to last indefinitely, and God forbid someone moves to the state and decides they want a Glock or an M&P, much less an AR-15.
This isn't reasonable. This isn't common sense.
This is a gun grab that goes beyond what anyone should be willing to accept.