Colorado Law Targeting Gun Dealers Faces New Legal Challenge

The Colorado Shooting Sports Association is suing the state of Colorado and Gov. Jared Polis over a new law that allows police in the state to obtain gun store records of purchases and transfers without a warrant or probable cause. In fact, no evidence of a crime is needed for law enforcement to take a peek at sales records, which include all kinds of personal information about buyers. 

HB 1126 imposes a number of other mandates on gun stores, including required security features and a state-level license. Those expensive requirements threaten the very existence of some smaller FFLs, but anti-gun Democrats claim they’re absolutely necessary for public safety. 

“This law authorizes government agents to access sensitive firearm ownership records without a warrant, without probable cause, and without any requirement to justify the search,” said Ray Elliott, the group’s president. “The Constitution does not permit the government to treat every law-abiding firearm owner as a suspect. We believe HB26-1126 violates fundamental protections guaranteed by both the Second and Fourth Amendments, and we are prepared to see this fight through.”

The lawsuit contends that HB 1126’s provision granting law enforcement access to firearm purchase records without requiring a warrant or probable cause violates the Constitution and “establishes a system of government surveillance directed at lawful firearm owners.”

“Colorado’s leaders continue to pass laws that burden the rights of responsible citizens while failing to address the criminals who actually commit violent offenses,” said CSSA’s executive director, Huey Laugesen. “When elected officials disregard constitutional limits on government power, it becomes necessary to defend those rights in court. That is exactly what we are doing.”

Colorado will point to language in Heller that “The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on… the commercial sale of arms” to argue that the state can place any kind of restriction it likes on gun dealers, and in some circuits that argument would be accepted at face value. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, however, has previously found that New Mexico’s 7-day waiting period on guns sales violates the Second Amendment rights of gun buyers, which bodes well for CSSA. 

The organization isn’t just relying on a Second Amendment challenge. The complaint also alleges that the new law violates the Fourth Amendment rights of gun buyers and sellers by allowing for searches without warrants or even the suspicion of a crime. 

This is the third lawsuit that CSSA has filed in recent years. The organization is also actively challenging the 11% excise tax on firearms and ammunition imposed through a voter referendum two years ago, as well as the state’s permit-to-purchase scheme for AR-15s and many other semi-automatic firearms that’s set to take effect in August. 

Gun owners, even those outside the state of Colorado, should send a couple of bucks to CSSA if they can afford it. Litigation is expensive, but these legal fights are unfortunately necessary in a state where the Democrat-dominated legislature has continually eroded the right to keep and bear arms for more than a decade. I appreciate the Colorado Shooting Sports Association’s defense of our 2A rights, and I wish them well in their attempts to claw back freedom through the federal court system. 

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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