February 14, 2025 11:07 AM UTC

Colorado Dems Hammer Out Major Gun Safety Compromise

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• by: Colorado Pols

Denver7’s Katie Parkins reports this morning after a marathon session in the Colorado Senate that advanced after hours of debate this year’s big gun safety bill, SB25-003, limiting access predominately to semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines like the AR-15. After negotiations with Gov. Jared Polis, the legislation now contains an important new path to permitted ownership of such weapons after additional scrutiny, and completion of training requirements tailored to human killing machine ownership:

In the second reading of the bill during the early hours Friday, lawmakers made some notable changes to the legislation. There are now exceptions for people who complete qualifying firearm or hunter education. Originally, there were just exceptions for law enforcement and people who completed qualifying firearm-related education courses.

The certification process would last five years and include teaching safe gun usage, federal and state firearm laws, deescalation and crisis intervention strategies, among other things.

The people who would be allowed to purchase a semiautomatic firearm with a detachable magazine would have to go through thorough vetting by a local sheriff as well.

The Colorado Sun’s Jesse Paul:

To qualify for the carveout, a gun purchaser would have to be vetted by their local sheriff through a process similar to what’s required to obtain a concealed carry permit. Then, if they already have a hunter safety certification, they would have to complete a roughly four-hour training course to be offered by a third-party vendor — someone who is a qualified firearms instructor — through Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

Without a prior hunter safety certification, a purchaser would have to complete roughly a dozen hours of training over two days.

The course would focus on gun safety and specifically semiautomatic weapons. It would also include information about gun deaths associated with mental illness and Colorado’s red flag law, which lets a judge order the temporary seizure of guns from someone deemed an imminent risk to themselves or others.

By requiring anyone who wants to purchase a new AR-15 or similar restricted weapon to undergo the same vetting as a concealed carry permit holder and be educated about important related Colorado laws like the Extreme-risk Protection Order (ERPO) “Red Flag” law, this legislation would reduce easy access to these weapons while still allowing individuals who go through the process to obtain them after some additional vetting and education. Additional vetting before purchasing an AR-15 could have prevented tragedies like the March 2021 mass shooting at a supermarket in Boulder.

If this bill becomes law, it will even as amended be the most ambitious gun safety measure passed in the state since at least the original passage of ERPO in 2019. Instead of an outright prohibition on the sale of weapons that fall under the bill’s scope, a robust permitting and training program would regulate access to these most dangerous of available “civilian” firearms. Gun rights supporters regularly argue that concealed-carry permit holders very rarely commit crimes and should therefore be able to carry them everywhere, an argument that should apply equally well to vetting and training requirements for assault weapons.

Our state’s noisy but increasingly politically toothless gun lobby will never support even the most modest gun safety measure. But as amended, this bill is a good idea made even better. This is no longer an issue that Democrats in Colorado have reason to fear politically, having been rewarded by voters more or less continuously since the high water mark of opposition to gun safety legislation in 2013. The gun lobby is noisy, but the public consistently supports common-sense gun safety bills as long as they are accurately explained.

This was a major hurdle, and Senate Democrats deserve credit for shepherding this significant bill through what’s likely to be its toughest test.