Colorado Democrats Eyeing Ammo Restrictions in Addition to Semi-Auto Ban

While the constitutional abomination known as SB 3 has rightfully been getting a lot of attention as it makes its way through the Colorado legislature, it’s far from the only assault on our right to keep and bear arms under consideration in Denver this year. 

On Thursday, a bill barring adults under the age of 21 from purchasing ammunition cleared a House committee, and could be up for a vote on the House floor as early as next week. 

Though multiple courts around the country have shot down age-based restrictions that deny under-21s from keeping, bearing, and buying firearms since the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen back in 2022, anti-gunners in the Rocky Mountain State have been empowered and emboldened by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, which declined to block the state’s law banning firearm purchases to under-21s last November. 

In their decision overturning a preliminary injunction against the age-based prohibition, the appellate court bizarrely concluded that age-related purchasing restrictions fall outside the scope of the Second Amendment, leaving the door open to Colorado imposing a ban (however unlikely) on adults of any age purchasing firearms. As the Duke Center for Firearms Law (which typically loves it when courts uphold gun control restrictions) elaborated at the time of the decision:

After determining that at least one plaintiff had standing to challenge the restriction, the panel outlined the Bruen framework and the threshold textual step of determining whether the regulated conduct is protected by the Second Amendment.  The panel found initially that the plaintiff with standing was part of the “people” with the right to keep and bear arms and that the plaintiff intended to purchase a protected “arm.”  However, the panel then noted the Supreme Court’s assessment in Heller that certain types of regulations are “presumptively lawful”—and it placed this inquiry in Bruen “step one,” implying that at least some of these laws simply don’t touch on “keeping and bearing” and thus don’t implicate protected conduct.  While noting that Heller’s “presumptively lawful” paragraph was dicta, the panel nevertheless found itself “bound by Supreme Court dicta almost as firmly as by the Court[’s] outright holdings.” 

It’s an utterly absurd decision, given that the right to keep and bear arms is rendered meaningless without the the ability to acquire one. The same goes for ammunition. Without ammo, a firearm is a paperweight, or maybe a club. Either way, it’s absolutely useless for its intended purpose. But the Tenth Circuit has taken the position that  “laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms are lawful extends equally to laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial purchase of arms.” The court went on to say that even under the Bruen test Colorado’s law is likely to withstand constitutional muster because setting the age to purchase a gun at 21 is “consistent with both scientific evidence on brain development and historical regulatory practice.” 

Other courts have held that laws prohibiting members of the political community from exercising their Second Amendment rights cannot stand, and though the age of majority might have been 21 in 1791 and 1868, today it’s 18, which makes these under-21 gun bans inconsistent with the national tradition of gun ownership. 

If HB 1133 does become law I’m sure it will face a legal challenge, but unfortunately, the Tenth Circuit’s illogic holds sway in Colorado. As a result, anti-gun lawmakers can feel at least somewhat confident that the appellate court will green light their ammo restrictions just as it’s allowed the ban on under-21s buying guns to take effect.