Gov. Jared Polis signed a sweeping gun-control measure into legislation Thursday, the fruits of years of effort by advocates and progressive Democrats to restrict the sale of high-powered semiautomatic weapons in Colorado.
Beginning subsequent summer season, Coloradans must cross a background verify and a coaching course earlier than they will buy a swath of semiautomatic firearms that embrace many of the weapons identified colloquially as assault weapons. Senate Invoice 3 additionally prohibits the sale of bump shares and rapid-fire set off activators, that are firearm parts that may improve a gun’s price of fireside.
The invoice’s sponsors mentioned it was meant to forestall future mass shootings and implement the state’s current prohibition on high-capacity magazines.
“We’ve got been ready so as to add to the protection of every Coloradan, particularly in relation to gun violence,” mentioned Sen. Tom Sullivan, a Centennial Democrat who co-sponsored the invoice with Sen. Julie Gonzales and Reps. Meg Froelich and Andy Boesenecker.
SB-3, which handed the legislature late final month, turns into essentially the most sweeping gun-control measure handed by legislative Democrats in Colorado, and its passage into legislation was cheered Thursday by nationwide gun-control teams Mothers Demand Motion and Everytown for Gun Security.
Although the legislation doesn’t impose an entire ban on assault weapons or any sort of firearm, it follows within the footsteps of earlier makes an attempt within the Capitol to completely prohibit the sale or buy of these weapons. A gaggle of activists, together with native college students who’d repeatedly come to the state Capitol calling for tighter rules, attended the invoice signing within the governor’s workplace Thursday.
Earlier than the invoice was signed, Froelich referred to these college students because the “lockdown technology” that has lived their “entire college lives within the shadow of gun violence.”
“At the moment’s victory is due to the numerous college students that confirmed up day after day to testify in assist of this life-saving invoice,” Grant Cramer, a gun violence survivor and the co-president of Denver East Excessive Faculty’s College students Demand Motion chapter, mentioned in a press release. “We refused to take no for a solution and now we’ve strengthened our gun security legal guidelines in Colorado. That is proof that our voices maintain energy to create change, irrespective of how huge or small.”
Ian Escalante, the chief director of the group Rocky Mountain Gun House owners, known as the invoice’s passage into legislation “one of the vital disgraceful issues that’s ever been achieved within the state.” After the invoice had drawn nationwide consideration from gun-rights advocates in current weeks, the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation rapidly put out a blistering assertion criticizing Polis’ determination to signal it.
Escalante mentioned his group was contemplating authorized choices to problem the invoice — although they probably gained’t be capable to pursue litigation till the invoice goes into impact subsequent yr. He additionally mentioned he deliberate to pursue “electoral accountability” in 2026, referring to difficult Democrats in aggressive districts.
“We’re not going to let this legislation stand,” he mentioned exterior the governor’s workplace, “whether or not it’s by litigation or whether or not we kick these bastards out and we exchange them with individuals who will repeal it.”
Regulation doesn’t apply to frequent handguns
The brand new legislation goes into impact Aug. 1, 2026. It applies primarily to gas-operated semiautomatic firearms that settle for removable magazines, a definition that features the AR-15 rifle and plenty of weapons prefer it. It might require individuals cross background checks from their county sheriff. Ought to they clear that, they would wish to take both a four- or 12-hour coaching course, relying on whether or not they’ve handed a hunter security class.
Polis mentioned Thursday that he wished to maintain the price of background checks and coaching to beneath $200 per individual and that he wished further carveouts for individuals who’d beforehand been educated with the weapons.
The legislation doesn’t prohibit the possession of the weapons. It doesn’t apply to most typical handguns or shotguns, and lawmakers included an inventory of different firearms which can be exempt from the restrictions. The legislation additionally wouldn’t require anybody to show of their firearms.
Gun outlets can even proceed promoting firearms lined beneath the legislation, even to individuals who haven’t handed background checks, as long as the weapons have been altered to have a set journal — that means that they can’t be reloaded as quickly.
The entire legislature’s 34 Republican lawmakers — together with a number of Democrats — voted in opposition to the invoice. Conservatives labeled it an infringement on the Second Modification and argued it will do little to cease gun violence.
Opponents delivered hundreds of petitions to Democrats and to Polis’ workplace requesting that the proposal be rejected, and a few additionally left flyers on the properties of Democratic lawmakers.
A skeptic of earlier proposals to ban firearms on the state stage, Sullivan embraced SB-3 as a method to implement the 2013 journal ban handed after the 2012 Aurora movie show capturing, through which Sullivan’s son, Alex, was killed. Different advocates and supporters mentioned the invoice seeks to forestall the mass shootings which have develop into a standard characteristic of American life.
The brand new legislation’s limitations would apply to the weapons used within the Aurora assault in addition to to the weapons used at Columbine Excessive Faculty in 1999, on the Boulder King Soopers in 2021, and in a capturing spree in Lakewood and Denver in late 2021.
Polis sought modifications to invoice
As initially drafted, the invoice would’ve broadly banned the sale or buy of any gas-operated gun that accepted removable magazines — which concurrently would’ve escalated the journal ban and enacted a de facto ban on most current assault weapons.
However Polis balked, and his workers sought to insert a loophole into the measure permitting for gross sales to proceed beneath sure circumstances.
In a late-night deal, Sullivan and Gonzales ultimately acquiesced to the governor’s request. They added within the coaching and background verify necessities after a wanted supporter — embattled then-Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis — was absent forward of a key vote.
In a press release accompanying the invoice signing, Polis targeted largely on the modifications inserted into the invoice to permit the firearms to nonetheless be bought to individuals who full SB-3’s coaching and background verify necessities.
“This invoice ensures that our Second Modification rights are protected and that Coloradans can proceed to buy the gun of their selection for sport, searching, self protection, or dwelling protection,” he wrote.
With SB-3, Colorado joins a rising checklist of states which have both instituted a allowing scheme — that means necessities that individuals obtain some kind of approval earlier than they will buy sure weapons — or an outright ban on semiautomatic rifles.
The legislation will nearly definitely be challenged in courtroom, although authorized students and supporters have argued it stands on stable constitutional footing.
Legislative Democrats have enacted a rising checklist of firearms rules, largely up to now few years because the social gathering’s legislative majorities have grown. Sullivan mentioned 40 gun-violence prevention payments have been launched in recent times, almost half of which have handed.
These new legal guidelines embrace a compulsory ready interval and age restrict for buying firearms, new gun-storage guidelines and extra gun store licensing necessities. Lawmakers have additionally additional restricted the place firearms could be carried and have expanded the authorized avenues for a courtroom to briefly confiscate an individual’s weapons.
After signing SB-3 on Thursday, Polis then signed one other Sullivan-backed invoice meant to assist carry federal funding to the state to reply to mass shootings.
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