Colorado lawmakers get ready new law — and method — to restrict high-powered gun gross sales

Colorado lawmakers will once more search to prohibit the sale of positive varieties of semiautomatic firearms within the coming legislative consultation, embracing a brand new method after extra sweeping attack guns bans died within the state Capitol lately.

The brand new invoice spearheaded by way of Democrats is geared toward development upon current gun rules by way of prohibiting the sale, manufacture or acquire of semiautomatic guns that use removable magazines. It’s set to be presented within the early days of the legislative consultation, which starts Wednesday.

Removable magazines feed ammunition into the gun and can also be swapped out when empty. The measure would additionally ban rapid-fire cause activators and bump shares, which might be parts that building up the hearth fee of semiautomatic rifles and had been infamously utilized in The us’s deadliest mass taking pictures, in Las Vegas in 2017.

The invoice, backed by way of Centennial Democrat Sen. Tom Sullivan, would no longer limit ownership of the centered firearms, and someone who possessed the guns prior to a ban went into impact may just stay them. The measure would point felony consequences — in addition to the lack of licensure — in opposition to dealers who violated it.

Sullivan forged the invoice with the intention to put in force the state’s 11-year-old ban on high-capacity magazines — which, he stated, are nonetheless offered in Colorado regardless of the prohibition. The parts had been utilized in each the Boulder King Soopers taking pictures and the Membership Q taking pictures in Colorado Springs, Sullivan stated.

“So as an alternative of strolling into the King Soopers with more than one magazines that (the shooter) simply switched out and stored on firing, he would both have to prevent and manually reload, which supplies regulation enforcement and the general public the facility to take some more or less an motion … or he must stroll in there with more than one AR-style guns with hooked up magazines,” stated Sullivan, whose son, Alex,  was once killed within the 2012 Aurora film theater taking pictures, in an interview.

The proposal isn’t a ban on positive semiautomatic rifles known as attack guns, regardless that its parameters would limit the sale of a large swath of high-powered weapons colloquially thought to be to be in that class. Sullivan has prior to now hostile efforts by way of Democratic lawmakers to prohibit attack guns on the state point, and one such strive handed the Area prior to death within the Senate ultimate spring.

Sullivan reiterated his opposition to a state-level attack guns ban, regardless that he stated he supported a national prohibition.

The ones varieties of firearms may just nonetheless be offered below his invoice, albeit in numerous shape: If producers and gun house owners need to proceed promoting and the usage of the guns, Sullivan stated, they might wish to modify to firearms that may handiest be loaded slowly, bullet by way of bullet, from the highest of the weapon — no longer via removable magazines.

Sullivan criticized firearm producers and sellers for proceeding to promote high-capacity magazines within the state, and he puzzled why regulation enforcement had no longer achieved extra to proactively crack down on their sale. The trouble to prohibit bump shares comes after the U.S. Superb Court docket struck down a Trump management ban at the parts, which drew nationwide scrutiny after the Las Vegas mass shooter fired greater than 1,000 bullets in 11 mins in 2017.

The proposal does no longer duvet same old handguns or shotguns, regardless that the prohibition would come with the kind of pistol used within the Boulder King Soopers taking pictures that left 10 folks useless in March 2021.

The invoice is a brand new method to restricting the kind of high-powered guns often utilized in mass shootings, that have turn out to be a grimly widespread incidence in Colorado and in The us. Whilst different states have banned positive semiautomatic rifles outright, Sullivan stated a identical enlargement of {a magazine} ban hasn’t been used in other places.

It additionally represents the most recent step of years of Colorado Democrats’ makes an attempt to higher control gun gross sales. Ultimate 12 months, lawmakers handed a invoice to require that gun sellers hang a state license, on most sensible of the prevailing federal requirement. (Gun sellers who promote guns prohibited by way of Sullivan’s invoice may just lose their state license if it turns into regulation.) Legislators additionally directed further cash to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to higher examine unlawful gross sales of weapons and gun parts.

The brand new invoice might be co-sponsored by way of Democratic Reps. Andrew Boesenecker and Meg Froelich. Boesenecker co-sponsored the state licensure invoice ultimate 12 months, whilst Froelich and Sullivan sponsored the measure to extend the investigative bureau’s price range to pursue unlawful gun gross sales.

“What we’re ready to acknowledge beautiful obviously is that specific types of firearms, when paired with a high-capacity mag, have a lethality which are simply remarkable,” Boesenecker stated.