Colorado lawmakers on Friday sent three gun-control measures regulating the sale of ammunition and firearms to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk for passage into law.
The bills now waiting to be signed include Senate Bill 3, which would limit the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms to only people who’ve passed a background check and training course; House Bill 1133, which requires retailers to keep ammunition locked; and House Bill 1238, which requires additional security at gun shows.
The three bills received final procedural votes in the House and Senate on Friday. Polis is expected to sign all three. He has 30 days to do so — or to veto them — before the bills pass automatically into law.
Gun-control advocates celebrated the bills’ passage — and what they described as Colorado’s role as a “national leader” on gun violence prevention — in a statement Friday afternoon.
“As the federal landscape has made it significantly more challenging to combat gun violence in our communities, and we are seeing state legislatures across the nation cower at the will of the extremist gun lobby, today, I am proud to be a Coloradan,” Julie Ort, a gun violence survivor who now volunteers with the Colorado chapter of Moms Demand Action, said in the statement.
Elsewhere Friday, the House also advanced — but has not fully passed — two other gun-related measures. One would define “mass shootings” in state law for the purposes of pursuing federal funding to respond to the events. The other would further limit the use of guns — or toy guns — to intimidate election workers and others involved in election processes.
Those proposals require an additional vote in the House before moving to the Senate, where they will restart the process.
The ammunition bill effectively bans ammunition vending machines. It somewhat limits the sale of ammunition to people under the age of 21, though the bill was amended to allow for a slew of exemptions, including people currently older than 18 but under 21 and anyone in the future who passes a hunter’s safety course. The bill would take effect on July 1, 2026.
The gun show measure requires organizers of the events to have security and liability insurance, and it also places limitations on minors attending the shows without a guardian or adult present. If it becomes law, the bill would take effect Jan. 1, 2026.
Senate Bill 3 would effectively ban gas-operated, semiautomatic firearms — a definition that includes most guns known as assault weapons. Those weapons could still be sold, though, to people who pass a background check and a training course.
Otherwise, gun shops could continue selling the covered firearms to the general public — so long as the weapons were modified to have a fixed magazine, which takes longer to reload. The bill would go into effect on Aug. 1, 2026.
That bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Sullivan, a Centennial Democrat whose son, Alex, was killed in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting. At the end of each week during the legislative session, Sullivan gives a brief comment about his son’s death from the floor of the Senate.
On Friday — the day that Senate Bill 3 passed — Sullivan said it was the 662nd Friday since Alex’s death.
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