Colorado Democrats introduced legislation to ban assault-style weapons in the state Wednesday, marking the first time the legislature has considered such a ban.
House Bill 23-1230, also known as “Prohibit Assault Weapons in Colorado,” was introduced by state Rep. Elisabeth Epps and state Sen. Rhonda Fields, both Democrats. Hundreds of people gathered at the state Capitol to express their support or protest the legislation.
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The House Judiciary Committee hearing started at 9:30 a.m. MDT, and it was expected to last throughout the evening.
The definition of “assault rifle” has been widely disputed and is a barrier in gun reform legislation. HB 23-1230 currently defines such a weapon as a “semiautomatic rifle” that features “detachable magazines, barrel shrouds, pistol grips, forward grips, and telescoping stocks, which allow a shooter to either conceal the weapon or make it easier to fire a high volume of ammunition in a short period of time while maintaining accuracy.”
The bill would permit current owners to keep firearms they already possess, but it would ban the sale and transfer of specific guns.
Certain firearms are exempt, such as antique firearms, shotguns, “or any muzzle-loader that uses black powder for hunting or historical reenactments.”
Former Colorado GOP Chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown told the Washington Examiner that the bill has undergone multiple revisions.
“It’s done anything from banning the 10 most popular handguns that women use in self-defense to banning a wide variety of semi-automatic weapons that a lot of people in Colorado, who have concealed [carry licenses], use,” Brown said. “It’s just a huge, broad-ranging violation of Second Amendment rights.”
Colorado has seen some of the country’s most well-known massacres, including the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, killing 13; the Aurora movie theater shooting that killed 12 in 2012; the 2021 King Soopers grocery store shooting in Boulder, killing 10; and the Colorado Springs nightclub shooting, which killed five last November.
Multiple states have taken legislative action around assault-style weapon bans, enacting steps toward a full ban despite probable failure at the federal level.
In June 2022, Delaware banned the manufacture, sale, transfer, receipt, and possession of assault-style weapons, and Illinois banned the sale, manufacturing, or delivery earlier this year. They joined nine other states with similar laws, among them California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York.
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“I think the reality is that Colorado as a whole is a very pro-Second Amendment state,” Brown said. “We are a concealed carry state. We believe people have the right to defend themselves.”
“And Colorado right now is No. 1 in a lot of violent crime metrics in the nation. And so with crime on the rise in a lot of our communities, people don’t want to see these kinds of bans and preventions on people defending themselves,” she added.
