Politics April 16,2024 | Independence Journal Editorial Team

Colorado Democrats Advance Statewide Ban On Semi-Automatic Weapons

As anti-gun activists continue to lobby for restrictions to the Second Amendment at the state and federal level, lawmakers in Colorado’s Democratic-led legislature recently pushed forward a bill aimed at prohibiting the sale of semi-automatic firearms.

In a party-line vote of 35-27, the proposal passed the state House on Sunday, though it still needs to clear the Senate and be signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis in order to be implemented as a law.

A number of other states — including California, New York and Illinois — have versions of a semi-automatic firearm ban on the books already, but such proposals always draw significant backlash from Second Amendment advocates and even some leftists who believe such bans infringe too much into the rights protected by the Constitution.

Polis, for example, has previously bristled at the notion of implementing a statewide ban despite having already signed into law a number of other gun-control measures.

Nevertheless, state Rep. Javier Mabrey, a Democrat who supports the bill, cited Colorado’s history of mass shootings as a reason to become the next state to prohibit many common guns.

“This is the state where the modern era of the mass shooting began with Columbine,” he said in promoting the legislation. 

In addition to the 1999 school shooting, Mabrey also referenced a deadly 2012 incident in making the case for the bill.

“In Aurora, when the shooter walked in that theater and opened fire, and in less than 90 seconds shot up a room full of people, that cannot be done with a knife,” he said. “That can’t be done with a knife.”

While proponents have attempted to portray the impacted guns as particularly lethal weapons of war, the truth is that semi-automatic firearms make up the vast majority of all guns currently available — a fact GOP state Rep. Ryan Armagost cited in voicing his opposition to the bill. 

“This covers 80% of modern firearms,”  he declared. “How can we take that right for people to purchase a tool?”

In addition to every Republican in the House, the measure also drew opposition from various advocacy groups including the National Rifle Association.
“This unconstitutional ban on commonly owned firearms is the most anti-gun bill ever passed by the Colorado House,” asserted NRA Colorado State Director Travis Couture-Lovelady. “HB4-1292’s broad definition of a so-called ‘assault weapon’ bans all semi-automatic rifles, including America’s most popular rifle, the AR-15, along with countless other rifles, pistols, and shotguns that Coloradans use for hunting, target shooting, and self-defense.”

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