DENVER | Colorado’s Democratic-controlled House on Sunday passed a bill that would ban the sale and transfer of semiautomatic firearms, a major step for the legislation after roughly the same bill was swiftly killed by Democrats last year.
The bill, which passed on a 35-27 vote, is now on its way to the Democratic-led state Senate. If it passes there, it could bring Colorado in line with 10 other states — including California, New York and Illinois — that have prohibitions on semiautomatic guns.
But even in a state plagued by some of the nation’s worst mass shootings, such legislation faces headwinds.
Rocky Mountain Gun Owners said they will continue to fight against the proposed ban, despite the victory in the state House Sunday.
“We may have lost this battle, but we will win the war,” said in a social media post Sunday.
Colorado’s political history is purple, shifting blue only recently. The bill’s chances of success in the state Senate are lower than they were in the House, where Democrats have a 46-19 majority and a bigger far-left flank. Gov. Jared Polis, also a Democrat, has indicated his wariness over such a ban.
House lawmakers with districts encompassing Aurora all voted for the bill, except two. State Democratic Rep. Mike Weissman and Republican State Rep. Rod Bockenfeld were both excused from the vote, according to state voting records.
Last year, a similar bill died in committee, with some Democratic lawmakers citing concerns over the sweep of a ban and promises they made to their constituents to avoid government overreach affecting most gun owners’ rights.
Democrats last year passed and Polis signed into law four less-expansive gun control bills. Those included raising the age for buying any gun from 18 to 21; establishing a three-day waiting period between the purchase and receipt of a gun; strengthening the state’s red flag law; and rolling back some legal protections for the firearms industry, exposing it to lawsuits from the victims of gun violence.
Those laws were signed months after five people were killed at an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs last year. Soon, the state will mark the 25th anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting that killed 13 people. Other mass shootings in Colorado include 12 people killed in 2012 at an Aurora movie theater and 10 people killed in 2021 at a Boulder supermarket.
“This is the state where the modern era of the mass shooting began with Columbine,” Denver Democratic Rep. Javier Mabrey said in urging fellow lawmakers to join other states that ban semiautomatic weapons.
Republicans decried the legislation as an onerous encroachment on the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. They argued that mental illness and people who do not value life — not guns — are the issues that should be addressed. People with ill intent can use other weapons, such as knives, to harm others, they argued.
Democrats responded that semiautomatic weapons can cause much more damage in a short period of time.
“In Aurora, when the shooter walked in that theater and opened fire,” Mabrey said, “and in less than 90 seconds shot up a room full of people. That cannot be done with a knife, that can’t be done with a knife.”
Good news!
This has nothing to do with the Second Amendment. It is time to acknowledge that the Supreme Court majority in the Heller case lied flagrantly about the history and purpose of the Second Amendment.
The current Supreme Court is little better, if better at all.
Clutch your pearls harder.
Seems like at least a partial “taking”. If I cannot sell or transfer title to my property have I not lost real and substantial value in that property?
It would have been nice if this article actually said something about the bill.. Report on the story not the past as to why the writer thinks this bill should pass.
Democrats cannot control the border, control drugs, control cartels, but they want to take away a citizens right to self defense? Hitler and Stalin would be proud.
This will be yet another firearm restriction that will be held up in the courts by the gun rights advocates (as mentioned by RMGO in the article) that will burn taxpayer money and likely be ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court. Our idiot politicians never consider this, and they also never address the fact that any gun can be purchased on the black market or be obtained illegally quite easily. By that point, it’s already too late to stop the psycho/nut-case/revenge seeker who wants to shoot up a school, library, movie theater, post office, etc.
Want to make real change, binding change about gun laws, amend the 2nd amendment (which requires “…an amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress, or, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose. The amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of the State legislatures, or three-fourths of conventions called in each State for ratification.”). Very likely never going to happen. The 2nd amendment has bound us to the society we have become, and we’ll unlikely ever see it change.
You are 100 percent correct. In addition, ignored is the fact that people enjoy killing other people. (Probably not a recent development) We are a society of death. Nothing will change that.
I would like to own a semi-automatic firearm to keep up with criminals.
Why should they be the only ones?
The articles are unclear as to what firearms are being proposed for banning. I assume they mean AR-15 Rifles. But just saying they’re voting to ban semi-automatic firearms would also include handguns.
How about clearer reporting?