The purchase, sale and manufacture of semiautomatic guns that accept a detachable ammunition magazines would be banned in Colorado under a bill introduced Wednesday by Democrats on the first day of the state legislature’s 2025 lawmaking term.
Senate Bill 3, which would affect most pistols and rifles, would also outlaw rapid-fire trigger activators and bump stocks, which can make a semiautomatic firearm fire at a rate similar to that of an automatic weapon.
The measure would have an effect similar to legislation that failed at the Capitol in recent years that would have banned the purchase, sale and manufacture of a broad swath of firearms, defined in those bills as assault weapons.
But Senate Bill 3 appears to have a better chance of reaching the governor’s desk given the number of cosponsors it was introduced with. The bill has 18 original cosponsors in the Senate, including all but five Democrats in the chamber. It needs 18 votes to pass the Senate.
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Sale, manufacture of semiautomatic guns that accept detachable magazines would be banned in Colorado under bill
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10:47 AM MST on Jan 8, 202510:47 AM MST on Jan 8, 2025If the bill passes the Senate, the legislature’s more politically moderate chamber, it will almost certainly be approved by the House, where it has 25 original cosponsors, and make it to the governor’s desk.
Whether Gov. Jared Polis would sign the bill if it makes it to his desk, however, remains unclear. He has expressed skepticism of measures seeking to ban certain firearms.
The governor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Republicans are expected to be uniformly opposed to the bill, but they are in big minorities in the House and Senate. The GOP can try to slow the advance of the measure, but they are mostly powerless to stop it.
The ban would go into effect Sept. 1. First-time violations would constitute a Class 2 misdemeanor offense, punishable by jail time and a fine, while a subsequent offense would constitute a Class 6 felony also punishable by prison.
Most semiautomatic guns — pistols and rifles — accept detachable magazines.
That means weapons that would fall under the ban would include the AR-15 and its variants, as well as AK-47s, TEC-9s, Beretta Cx4 Storms, Sig Sauer SG550s, MAC-10s, and Derya MK-12s.
Other weapons that would be affected include the popular Glock 19, Sig Sauer P226, Beretta 92 and Walther PKK. Those are all pistols.
The bill would give the attorney general the power to list which firearms would be prohibited under the measure.
The measure has exceptions for bolt-, pump-, level- and slide-action guns, as well as weapons purchased by law enforcement or the military.
Senate Bill 3, should it pass the legislature and be signed into law, would not outlaw possession of the firearms covered by the bill. That means people who have the weapons before the measure goes into effect wouldn’t be affected.
The lead sponsor of the bill is state Sen. Tom Sullivan, a Centennial Democrat whose son was murdered in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting. Other main sponsors include Sen. Julie Gonzales, D-Denver, and Democratic Reps. Meg Froelich of Arapahoe County and Andrew Boesenecker of Fort Collins.
Colorado Rep. Tom Sullivan, D-Aurora, foreground, speaks as Colorado House Majority Leader Alec Garnett, D-Denver, listens during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on a bill to get a “red flag” gun law on the books in Colorado Thursday, Feb. 21, 2019, in Denver. The bill, which is backed by several law enforcement officials, would allow for the seizure of weapons from persons deemed by a court to pose a significant risk to themselves and to others. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)Democrats in the legislature are pitching Senate Bill 3 as a way to enforce Colorado’s 2013 law banning ammunition magazines with a capacity greater than 15 rounds. Violations of the law have been widely documented, and magazines with a capacity larger than 15 rounds have been used in at least two mass shootings in Colorado since 2013.
“It’s a high capacity magazine enforcement bill,” Sullivan said. “We passed that legislation in 2013. We’ve had 11 years since then. We haven’t gotten buy-in from the industry — they continue to ship high capacity magazines into the state. We haven’t gotten the buy-in from retailers, hobbyists. This is the next step to the enforcement.”
But the reality is gun manufacturers don’t appear to produce versions of the weapons that would be banned under the bill that don’t use or accept detachable magazines, meaning the effect would go far beyond enforcement of the 2013 law.
Sullivan said manufacturers could produce versions of their weapons that have a permanently attached 15-round magazine to adhere to the bill, if it passes.
“They will if they want to continue to sell here within the state of Colorado,” he said. “This is a big market.”
The bills banning a wide swath of semiautomatic weapons that were brought in 2023 and 2024 died in the House the first year and the Senate in the second after the measures’ sponsors failed to secure enough Democratic votes to advance them. But the interpersonal and political dynamics at the Capitol have changed since then, and Sullivan’s lead sponsorship of Senate Bill 3 gives the measure a big boost.
Sullivan opposed the 2023 and 2024 measures.
Senate Bill 3 was assigned to the Senate State Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. It hasn’t been scheduled for its first hearing yet.
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