Colorado lawmakers have passed a slew of new firearm laws in the dozen years since a major local mass shooting — with the bulk of them enacted in just the last five legislative sessions. Here’s a timeline of the major laws, along with several incidents that helped influence the drafting of them.
July 20, 2012: A gunman opens fire in a movie theater in Aurora, killing a dozen people and injuring 70.
Dec. 14, 2012: A mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, kills 20 first-grade students and six educators.
March 20, 2013: During the Colorado legislative session following those incidents, then-Gov. John Hickenlooper signs three landmark gun laws: a 15-round limit for firearm magazines, a universal background check requirement and a new fee on gun buyers to pay for the checks.
Sept. 10, 2013: Two Democratic state senators are recalled by voters in a campaign by gun-rights advocates who are furious about the gun legislation. A third resigns later in the year.
November 4, 2014: Republicans win control of the state Senate, breaking Democratic trifecta control of both legislative chambers and the governorship. The party holds the Senate through 2018.
June 12, 2016: A gunman kills 49 people at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, in what at the time is the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
Oct. 1, 2017: In Las Vegas, a gunman fires on a crowd of fans at an outdoor country music concert, killing 60 people and injuring hundreds.
Feb. 14, 2018: A former student kills 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in the deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook.
Nov. 6, 2018: Colorado Democrats win a majority in the state Senate and regain trifecta control of state government as Gov. Jared Polis also wins election.
April 12, 2019: Polis signs the extreme risk protection order bill into law. Commonly known as the red-flag law, it allows judges to order the temporary confiscation of firearms from people suspected to be a danger to themselves or others.
March 22, 2021: A gunman kills 10 people at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder.
2021 legislative session: Colorado lawmakers pass, and Polis signs, five new gun laws: setting storage requirements for firearms, expanding background checks and adding disqualifying misdemeanors, establishing the state Office of Gun Violence Prevention, setting requirements for reporting lost or stolen firearms, and allowing local jurisdictions to pass more restrictive gun laws than the state.
May 9, 2021: A gunman opens fire on a birthday party in Colorado Springs, killing six people and then taking his own life.
2022 legislative session: Lawmakers pass a law banning the open carrying of firearms within 100 feet of a polling place.
November 19, 2022: A shooter kills five people and wounds 22 others at Club Q, a LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs.
2023 legislative session: Lawmakers pass, and Polis signs, four new gun laws: establishing a three-day waiting period to purchase a firearm; making the minimum age 21 to purchase a firearm; expanding who can file an extreme risk protection order petition; and banning the sale, possession and creation of unserialized firearms, or so-called ghost guns.
2024 legislative session: Lawmakers and Polis enact seven new gun laws: setting new training requirements for concealed-carry permits; setting new requirements for storing firearms in a vehicle; adding a new tax on firearms, ammunition and certain parts (subsequently adopted by voters 54%-46%); adding new state licensing for firearm dealers; expanding authority for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to investigate firearm-related crimes; adding a new merchant code to track sales of guns and ammunition; and banning the carrying of firearms, including those that are concealed, in government buildings, near polling places and in educational institutions.
2025 legislative session: Lawmakers pass, and Polis signs, seven gun laws: making the theft of a firearm a felony, regardless of the weapon’s value; setting the minimum age at 21 to purchase ammunition in most circumstances; adding new requirements for gun shows; increasing enforcement capabilities for the Department of Revenue related to firearms dealers; adding permitting requirements for the purchase of certain semiautomatic firearms; creating a voluntary do-not-sell list for firearms; and establishing requirements for the Department of Public Safety to seek additional grant money for the state’s response to mass shootings.
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