Colorado House passes bill to ban sale, purchase of “assault weapons,” sending measure to Senate

In a preview of the lawsuits to come, several Republicans said the bill violates the Second Amendment. (A federal court in Illinois affirmed that state’s sale and purchase ban, upon which the Colorado bill is based; that ruling has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court). They argued that the bill wouldn’t dent gun violence because few people die in mass shootings compared to the daily violence often perpetuated with handguns.

Rep. Ryan Armagost, a Berthoud Republican, referred to mass shootings as “clickbait.”

“No matter what you outlaw, no matter what we take away from citizens, criminals — people that hate — will always find a way to do their evil deeds,” said Parker Rep. Anthony Hartsook. “Nothing has stopped them since the beginning of time.”

Despite Democrats’ majority in the House, the bill’s passage was not assured, and its backers were still confirming and expanding support as late as Saturday night, partially because a few supportive legislators were absent Sunday.

The bill’s sponsors and supporters in the Capitol have also repeatedly sidestepped potential pitfalls. The measure was amended in committee to remove its hefty civil penalties, rerouting the bill away from a potentially perilous vote in the House Finance Committee and sending it instead to the full House.

Then, on Friday, a group of Democrats joined with House Republicans to amend the bill to include a study of what causes mass shootings. Because that change would’ve required state money to fund it, the bill was vulnerable to being rerouted back to committee, delaying time and setting it up for a potentially fatal vote. Its sponsors hurried to rally support and stripped the amendment before the House broke Friday night.

That set up Sunday’s final vote, which came six days before the 25th anniversary of the 1999 Columbine shooting that marked the beginning of the recent era of mass shootings. Shortly before the vote, Hernández talked about the students and staff killed in that shooting. He grew emotional when he described teacher Dave Sanders, who died in the shooting.

“I ask us to commit, colleagues, to never forgetting, as begged by community members, family members and children themselves over 25 years and every year since,” he said. “I ask you to never forget about Kyle (Velasquez), about Isaiah (Shoels), about Cassie (Bernall), and about a teacher named Dave.”

Next steps

A ban on certain semi-automatic firearms has failed to get traction in the Capitol before, amid concerns from lawmakers that the policy wouldn’t be as impactful as other gun reforms and that the backlash would be too strong.

That skepticism endures, complicating the bill’s path to law. Polis’ support is also far from certain: He recently told the Colorado Sun that he’s “long been skeptical of discussions around ‘this kind of equipment versus that kind of equipment.’ ”

Before the bill can get to Polis, though, it must now find a way through the state Senate. The chamber is overwhelmingly Democrat, too, but it generally has tacked a more moderate path compared to the House. Democrat Sen. Tom Sullivan, the Senate’s point person for gun reform and the father of an Aurora theater shooting victim, is a known and influential opponent to the policy, and the bill lacked a Senate sponsor until earlier this month.

That changed when Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat, agreed to take up the bill in the upper chamber. Gonzales is the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a likely committee assignment for the bill with a bare 3-2 Democratic majority, and she’s also the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate.

The bill will next be introduce into the Senate and assigned to a committee. Should it clear that first hurdle, it will then head to the full Senate for the first of two more votes. The legislative session ends May 8.

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