Colorado ban on sale, purchase of certain semiautomatic rifles clears Senate committee in first vote

In a near-midnight vote, a Colorado Senate committee late Tuesday gave initial approval to a bill that would ban the sale or purchase of semiautomatic firearms that accept detachable magazines.

The measure would cover a large swath of guns that are colloquially known as assault weapons. Senate Bill 3 passed the Senate’s State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on a party-line, 3-2 vote after eight hours of testimony in a packed room in the state Capitol.

The measure now heads to the full Senate, where its passage is virtually assured. Eighteen votes are needed to clear the 35-seat chamber, and 18 Democrats — not including a newly appointed senator who voted for the bill Tuesday night — have already signed on as co-sponsors.

From there, the bill will head to the House, where it has similar levels of support.

The bill’s sponsors, Democratic Sens. Tom Sullivan and Julie Gonzales, argued that it was the next step in enforcing Colorado’s 11-year-old ban on high-capacity magazines.

Sullivan, whose son, Alex, was killed in the 2012 Aurora movie theater shooting, said the magazine ban has been ignored, thus requiring lawmakers to pursue a ban on the sale or transfer of firearms that accept the components. The measure would also ban rapid-fire trigger activators and bump stocks, which increase the fire rate of weapons.

Marking a novel approach to limiting gun sales, SB-3 would not cover common shotguns, revolvers or pistols, unless they are gas-operated. It also would not make it illegal to possess semiautomatic weapons that accept detachable magazines.

The measure would essentially require gun manufacturers to modify semiautomatic rifles to have fixed magazines that must be loaded, round by round, from the top of the weapon, rather than through magazines that can be easily swapped out when bullets run out.

“This is an enforcement of the high-capacity magazine ban,” Sullivan said before the vote. “Something that we should have been working on since 2013, but we didn’t. And it took 11 years for us to get back on it and do something about it. That’s what we’re doing today. This is the next step forward. And then we’ll see where we go from here.”

For hours Tuesday, supporters and opponents took turns defending and railing against the proposal.

East High School students recalled the shootings and lockdowns on their campus in recent years, while local and national advocates for gun control groups defended the bill’s legality and workability.

The specter of Colorado’s — and America’s — grim and steady drumbeat of mass shootings was also ever-present Tuesday: Two supporters said they were alumni of Virginia Tech, the site of a 2007 shooting that left 32 people dead. Some supporters testified about shopping at the Boulder King Soopers where 10 people were killed by a shooter in 2021.

Jane Dougherty, whose sister was killed in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, testified about receiving her sister’s cleaned clothing in a box.

“We sanitize it because we don’t want to see it,” said Dougherty, who has testified in favor of past Colorado bills that were attempts at more overt bans on so-called assault weapons. “But we have to see it. We have to see what high-capacity magazines will do to your family members.”

The bill was opposed by Republicans, gun-rights advocacy groups and gun store owners. Firearms dealers warned that the ban would push them out of business.

JD Murphree of Triple J Armory said it would “devastate” gun stores. Gun- rights groups pledged to sue — a threat they have pursued, to mixed results, on recent gun-control bills.

Sen. Rod Pelton, a Cheyenne Wells Republican, said the measure was unconstitutional and violated the Second Amendment. Several opponents also accused the legislature of essentially seeking to ban all semiautomatic rifles.

“A gun ban by another name is still a gun ban,” Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams told the committee.

Sullivan denied that SB-3 was an assault weapons ban, and he said he didn’t support such a policy. Indeed, he said he’d essentially killed attempts by fellow Democrats over the past two years to pass a more explicit ban.

Governor’s position unclear

A Centennial Democrat, Sullivan is largely seen as the legislature’s de facto point-person on gun legislation. His backing of this latest iteration — coupled with more overt support in both chambers — means the bill is likely to pass and reach Gov. Jared Polis’ desk.

Polis’ position on the measure is unclear; a spokeswoman did not immediately return a message seeking comment Wednesday morning.

A potential snag comes from the bill’s estimated cost: The Colorado Bureau of Investigation projects that the bill would cost $4.6 million to implement — a hefty price tag in a session when the legislature faces a $700 million budget hole.