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Colorado, which has seen some of the country’s worst mass
shootings — including the 2022 killings at the LGBTQ+ nightspot
Club Q in Colorado Springs and the 1999 Columbine High School
massacre — joins nearly a dozen other states in requiring some
level of safety training or an exam to purchase a firearm.
One of the most restrictive gun control measures to be passed in
the state as part of a long-running Democratic campaign to
curtail gun violence, the law takes full effect in August 2026.
“We can’t afford not to do all we can to change the continuing
impact of gun violence,” said bill sponsor and state Sen. Tom
Sullivan, whose son, Alex, was killed in a 2013 shooting at a
theater in Aurora. Speaking at the bill signing, he added that
the measure is “just the next step we have undertaken on that
effort.”
Republicans and other opponents contend that the measure
violates the Second Amendment, and at last one organization,
Rocky Mountain Gun owners, was considering a legal challenge.
The several layers of hurdles that the law requires to purchase
these guns, and the accompanying costs and potential backlogs,
make “it a more or less administrative ban,” said Ian Escalante,
executive director of the gun rights group.
Previous attempts at securing an all-out ban on certain
semiautomatic guns, as has been done in deeply Democratic states
including New York and California, floundered in more purple
Colorado where many including the governor have something of a
libertarian streak.
“I really think this bill will make Colorado communities safer
and prevent both accidents as well as reduce gun violence, and
ultimately that means saving lives while protecting our Second
Amendment rights,” Polis said.
The proposal was watered down from a flat ban on sale of most
semiautomatics with detachable magazines, including rifles and
some pistols. Proponents argued that allowing only permanently
attached magazines would force a would-be shooter to reload
bullet by bullet.
The final bill as signed is a concession to Polis and other
Democrats wary of going too far.
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