DENVER | New limits on ammunition magazines and universal background check requirements take effect in Colorado on Monday, even as county sheriffs fight to overturn the signature pieces of state Democrats’ gun control legislation.
After months of tense debate among state officials, the conversation moves from the abstract to the tangible. Some gun stores are already stocking the smaller magazines to comply with the 15-round limit. Meanwhile, in the coming months the public will see how the expansion of background checks to private and online sales will work. It’s an area where there are still many unanswered questions.
Relatives of those killed in shooting rampages that rattled the nation last year are optimistic that the laws will have a long-term impact, but they urged patience.
“Nothing is going to happen overnight,” said Tom Sullivan, whose son Alex, was among the 12 slain while watching the latest Batman movie in a suburban Denver theater on July 20. Dozens more were wounded.
The theater shootings, along with the massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school became a turning point for stricter gun laws in Colorado — a politically moderate state with large swaths of rural areas where owning a gun is no more surprising than owning a car. But Colorado was the only state outside of the East Coast where lawmakers succeeded in passing new firearm restrictions, and the state became a focus as the White House made an unsuccessful attempt to urge Congress to pass new laws.
Colorado gun-shop owners are not convinced that banning larger magazines will make a difference, saying they can still be obtained illegally. The limit will also ban certain handguns and rifles as a result because some come with magazines that exceed 15 rounds.
“This is a very poorly thought-out, irrational law. And the shame of it is it’s not going to stop one criminal from doing harm to anybody,” said Paul Paradis, owner of Paradise Sales in Colorado Springs. Paradis said most of the magazines that will be banned soon have already been sold out at his store.
Others are seeing the same rush.
“Everyone’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s happening Monday.’ We have a lot guys running in and grabbing whatever they can,” said Chris Burnett, the manager at Rocky Mountain Pawn & Gun in Durango.
But it’s not as much of a rush as it was right after Newtown, he said. Still, gun rights advocates are launching a final hurrah in the days before the magazine limits take effect. Magpul Industries, a Colorado-based magazine maker, is selling off its remaining magazines and giving free 30-round magazines to the first 1,500 attendees at a Saturday sale in the Denver suburb of Glendale.
The company, one of the nation’s largest magazine manufacturers, is in the process of relocating because of the new law, despite assurances from Democrats that in can continue to operate in Colorado as long as none of its larger magazines were sold to private citizens. The company hasn’t said where it will move.
While Paradis is complying with the new magazine limits, the expansion of background checks raises some issues for him and other store owners. He’ll still do the checks for customers who buy firearms at his store because it’s figured into his business costs. But he said he’ll turn away those who show up at his store for a background check to sell a gun to someone else. In addition for the actual cost of a check — about $10 — the law says gun shops can’t charge a service fee of more than $10 for those private sales. Business owners say they can’t afford to do that.
Those background checks currently cost stores $50 of processing work, said Richard Taylor, the manager at Aurora’s Firing-Line.
“We’ll lose money if we do at it $10,” Taylor said.
Gun dealers are not mandated by law to do the checks on private sales, but it’s the responsibility of a private seller to arrange the check through a dealer before transferring a firearm.
It’s unclear what the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which actually conducts the checks, will do in cases where a gun store refuses to arrange a background check for private sales, said spokeswoman Susan Medina.
“That’s something we’re going to have to evaluate as we move forward,” she said. For now, CBI is adding more staff to prepare for a possible increase in the background checks, and to deal with what’s been a surge in the number of requests in recent months.
At the same time, Colorado sheriffs are taking the state to court with a lawsuit aiming to strike the universal background checks and the magazine limits. The next court date is July 10, in which sheriffs’ attorneys will seek to temporarily block the magazine law while the lawsuit proceeds.
In the lawsuit, the sheriffs argue ammunition magazines can be converted to hold more rounds than the law allows and that the legislation doesn’t provide enough safeguards to prevent people from inadvertently breaking the law. They also argue it will be difficult for private citizens to comply with the expanded background checks.
Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper and Republican Attorney General John Suthers have issued written guidance on the magazine limits. Suthers said magazines can’t be defined as “large capacity” simply because it can be modified to include more.
However, Republicans have not been reassured, and none voted for the new laws.
As the debate continues, the new laws have provided some hope to the relatives of the victims who moved lawmakers into action this year. For Sullivan, the laws are a first step, he said, so that “the situation that happened to my family doesn’t happen to other families here in Colorado.”
Plenty of capitol action becomes law today
This part of summer is a time for patriotism. It’s also the time new state laws go into effect across the nation.
Fiscal years begin July 1 on most financial calendars, and a slew of state government spending regulations kick in each year on that date. Policy laws also hit the books in a wave, though states often mark their independence by enacting such legislation on their own time.
Among the laws set to take effect this year around the U.S. are new abortion limits, gun laws and technology rules. And one state, Wyoming, will start setting up a lottery Monday, leaving only a handful of states without a jackpot drawing.
So as you get ready for Fourth of July cookouts and family gatherings, consider this roundup of laws starting Monday in Colorado. Thanks to a busy legislative session that saw Democrats pass a flurry of legislation, there’s an unusually long list of changes:
— MAGAZINE LIMITS: A law limiting most ammunition magazines to 15 rounds goes into effect July 1. House Bill 1224 grandfathers existing magazines, but newly produced clips will have to be date-stamped and in compliance with the ammunition limit. One of the most divisive parts of a gun control package adopted in response to last year’s mass shooting in Aurora, the ammunition limit already faces a legal challenge. A federal hearing about the ammunition limits is scheduled for July 10 in Denver.
— RENEWABLE ENERGY: A new law requiring rural electricity co-ops to double the amount of electricity they get from renewable sources by 2020. The change — from 10 percent to 20 percent — likely won’t bring any immediate changes for rural power customers. But they’ll be watching their power bills closely to see if Senate Bill 252 drives up rates beyond the established cap of 2 percent.
— MARIJUANA SAFETY: Colorado has the nation’s first recreational marijuana regulation law. House Bill 1317 took effect in May, but July 1 marks a major deadline in the law. The state Department of Revenue, which will oversee pot regulation, must release detailed regulations on the how the drug is grown and sold. The Legislature left large pieces of the pot regulation puzzle to the Department to figure out. One major detail the Department must announce by Monday is how the newly legal drug should be tested for safety and potency before going on sale to the public Jan. 1.
— CRIMES AGAINST PREGNANT WOMEN — Colorado joins other states with a felony crime of unlawful termination of a pregnancy. House Bill 1154 details how to punish people who harm pregnant women, resulting in the loss of a fetus. Lawmakers had debated similar proposals for years, but until 2013 they deadlocked over arguments about abortion.
— JOB-SEEKER CREDIT PROTECTION — Colorado employers face new limits on accessing the credit history of job applicants. Senate Bill 18 prohibits an employer’s use of consumer credit information for employment purposes if the information is unrelated to the job.
— CAREER ASSISTANCE — Another Democratic-sponsored plan to boost the state workforce is a new “career pathways program.” House Bill 1004 sets up a three-year grant program and a study of current labor pool requirements and qualifications.
— TOBACCO TAXES — Cigarette taxes aren’t going up. But they’re not going down, thanks to House Bill 1144, which makes permanent the state sales tax on tobacco. Sales taxes on tobacco are separate from excise taxes, but Colorado actually charged no statewide cigarette sales tax before 2009.
— GOVERNMENT LIABILITY — Suing Colorado for wrongdoing? You could be eligible for more if your claim stands up in court. Senate Bill 23 raises state liability limits from $150,000 for a single occurrence to $350,000 for a single occurrence.
— HELP FOR SENIORS — Starting Monday, Colorado tax payers will spend more on a fund to help the elderly with things like nutrition, transportation and legal services. Senate Bill 127 increases the amount of state sales tax that goes to the Older Coloradans Cash Fun from $8 million a year to $10 million a year.
— THE OL’ SUNSET EXTENSION — It’s a perennial quirk of state lawmaking: Politicians set up programs, giving the programs a sunset date to assure skeptical colleagues that the program won’t go on forever. Then, a few years later, the Legislature quietly extends the sunset they made a few years back, if not removing it altogether. Several sunset extensions take effect Monday, including extensions for pedestrian boards like the Water and Wastewater Facility Operators Certification Board (Senate Bill 150) and the Board of Mortgage Loan Originators (Senate Bill 156).
Who would pass laws that were so poorly thought 0ut? Those who are in lock-step or goose-step, as it were, with the Obama, Feinstein, Bloomberg, Soros group. These laws were not caused by the horrible murders, but from political leanings.