Does Colorado’s Amended Gun Ban Bill Put Polis in a Bind?

The editorial board of the Colorado Springs Gazette answers that question with an emphatic “yes.” In a new editorial, the paper ripped the Democrat-majority state Senate for giving its preliminary approval to SB 3 last week, and is unimpressed with the major amendment attached at the eleventh hour that creates a huge carveout to the ban on all gas-operated semi-automatic firearms that can accept a detachable magazine. 

The last minute amendment, which was apparently negotiated with the governor’s office, turns SB 3 from an outright gun ban into a hybrid bill. While the vast majority of semi-automatic long guns on the market would still be prohibited for purchase in the state, gun owners who go through additional training courses and receive a permission slip from their local sheriff would be exempt from the prohibition. This permit-to-purchase requirement gives cover to Democrats who want to reassure their constituents that they didn’t vote for a gun ban, but the paper’s editorial board is less than impressed with the legislative sleight of hand, which they say puts Polis in a difficult position.

If Polis signs the new version, he will go down among history’s worst gun-grabbing politicians. If Polis does anything other than veto SB-3, he will lose his viability as a candidate for national office. When a politician appears to the left of Harris on guns, his future is dim.

The new version attempts to preclude critics from saying it outlaws common handguns, rifles and shotguns. Instead, it limits their acquisition to wealthy, disproportionately white male consumers.

With the new amendments, Polis could buy the targeted guns (net worth > $400 million), along with most legislators. Those who could not buy guns — unable to meet the law’s high threshold — include people who need self-protection the most: low-income battered women, low-income members of the LGBTQIA community, and low-income minorities living in Colorado’s high-crime neighborhoods. 

Sure, pass a bill that harms only the lower half of the socio-economic ladder. They won’t fuss, because they are busy paying for overpriced food and inflated utility bills while staying off the radar of TdA gangsters and other criminals who chuckle at guns laws.

The amended bill would institutionalize social injustice and inequity. Instead of screwing 100% of Coloradans out of their gun rights, it would substantially burden only the working class and poor — the people most endangered by crime.

It would, until a court says otherwise, pretend the Second Amendment says gun rights “shall not be infringed among the rich.”

The paper isn’t wrong by arguing that the harms of SB 3 would disproportionately fall on those living paycheck to paycheck or struggling to get by, though every Colorado resident subjected to the permit requirements would be burdened by the mandate. The fingerprinting and additional training not only come with a price tag, but as the Gazette rightfully points out, they’re also akin to a Second Amendment poll tax. 

It’s like Old South’s literacy tests that kept “the wrong people” from voting. It also manifests in a gun registry of questionable legality.

Without disposable income, a flexible work schedule and ample free time, forget it. Meeting the threshold would be, for average Coloradans, a pipe-dream too expensive and time consuming to pursue. Criminals will love this law.

I don’t know if they’ll love it, but I expect they’ll ignore it, just like they’ve ignored Colorado’s ban on “large capacity” magazines, “red flag” laws, and other gun control measures the Democrats have put in place over the past twelve years. Violent crime has increased dramatically across Colorado since 2013, despite (or in part, because of) all those new laws, while law-abiding gun owners have had their rights repeatedly dimished. 

In that sense SB 3 is simply more of the same. But if Polis ultimately signs it into law it would also be the most sweeping gun ban adopted in the United States since the city of Chicago banned the possession of all handguns back in the early 1980s… even with the carveout for gun owners who get a “firearm safety course eligibility card”. 

Just like the handgun bans in Chicago and Washington, D.C., Colorado’s semi-auto ban will face an immediate court challenge if its enacted into law, and I suspect it will fare just as poorly. Still, it could take years to overturn the law via the courts, and the harm done to Colorado residents in the meantime will be immense and irreparable. Polis might believe this amendment offers a middle-of-the-road approach to bans on so-called assault weapons, but as the Gazette argues, it’s still so extreme that it could end his viability as a national candidate right along with infringing on Coloradans’ right to keep and bear arms.