Colorado Lawmakers Pass Permit-to-Purchase ‘Assault Weapons’ Bill

Colorado has really gone downhill over the years.

It used to be pretty decent on guns, and then they started doing everything they could to “correct” that. Now, they’re as restrictive as almost anywhere except for the truly egregious states like New York and California.

Well, they were almost as restrictive.

It seems the legislature has passed a bill that puts them right up near the top.

Two days after the fourth anniversary of the Boulder King Soopers mass shooting, the Colorado House passed legislation to limit the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms to Coloradans who have passed a background check and taken a training course.

Senate Bill 3 — which would apply the new restrictions to the gun used in the Boulder attack — passed the House 36-28 on Monday. The bill’s Senate sponsors next will move to accept changes made in the House and then send the bill to Gov. Jared Polis.

The governor is expected to sign the measure. At Polis’ behest, lawmakers agreed to weaken the bill’s initial intent of fully banning the sale or purchase of the targeted weapons, unless they were altered to have a fixed magazine — meaning that they could not be reloaded as rapidly.

Still, the measure represents the strongest gun-control legislation passed by Colorado lawmakers since they began undertaking firearm regulation in earnest more than a decade ago.

The bill, which would take effect Aug. 1, 2026, broadly would prohibit the sale, purchase or transfer of gas-operated, semiautomatic firearms that accept detachable magazines — a definition that captures most firearms colloquially known as assault weapons.

Under the bill, the guns could still be purchased by people who’ve passed a background check and completed a training course. The legislation does not ban the possession of any weapon, and it would not apply to common pistols and shotguns. It also exempts a list of common guns, some of which are used for hunting.

If you look at that list, many of those are guns that fall under a curios & relics license, so those that might not be useful for hunting are collector’s pieces, at least in many cases.

The Springfield Armory M1A is an interesting exclusion in my book, but I can also sort of see why it’s there. Especially if you’re laboring under the impression that hunting is the only legitimate reason to have a rifle or shotgun.

And these twerps are.

Gov. Jared Polis is expected to sign the bill and likely continue to present himself as some kind of libertarian Democrat, which is now officially laughable, if it weren’t already. No libertarian of any party looks at this kind of regulation as anything other than a blatant infringement of the right to keep and bear arms.

A training requirement and a special license so that so-called assault weapons are treated almost worse than NFA items? And that’s not somehow as bad as an outright ban that would have been unlikely to survive judicial challenge as it was originally written? The idea that anyone can look at that and argue they support the Second Amendment while signing that is ridiculous.

Sure, it’s marginally better than Kamala Harris’s history, but that’s not saying much.

For our readers in Colorado, get your AR-15s now. The law doesn’t go into effect until next Summer, so don’t wait around. Get them and get covered now.

For those who don’t get into guns until after then, well, that’s what the courts will be for.