The state Senate took the final step Friday to clear a measure that would generally restrict the manufacture, distribution, transfer, and sale of semiautomatic firearms in Colorado.
SB 25-003 also imposes a gun safety training requirement on aspiring buyers of semiautomatic guns. That mandate could involve as much as 12 hours of learning. The state’s Fish and Wildlife Commission will design the training course.
“We sent over there a very good bill,” Sen. Tom Sullivan, D-Centennial and a lead sponsor of the measure, said during debate over whether to accept House amendments to the bill. “And they figured out a way to get things paid for.”
The debate over SB 25-003 has included a significant focus on a mechanism to pay for the administration of the firearm safety training course, which will be in the bailiwick of Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
Local sheriffs will be responsible for approving or denying applications for a permit to purchase and possess a semiautomatic weapon covered by the law. Sheriffs’ decisions could be challenged in court.
When originally introduced in January, the bill’s scope was much broader than the amended version cleared Friday. That first version would have banned the production and sale of all semiautomatic long guns, shotguns, and pistols that have a detachable ammunition magazine.
As it now stands, SB 25-003 prohibits well-known semiautomatic long guns like the AR-15 and AR-style rifles and the AK-47 and similar rifles, some shotguns, and some handguns. The bill specifically exempts a long list of weapons. Those exempted firearms include:
- AG 42 Ljungman
- Benelli Argo E Pro, R1 Big Game rifle
- Browning (Bar MK3, Bar Longtrac rifle, Bar Shortrac rifle)
- Fabrique Nationale model 49
- Fusil Automatique Modele 1917
- Gewehr 43
- Hakim rifle
- HK SL6, SL7
- Marlin camp carbine
- MAS49
- Remington rifle types (model 4, model 8, model 740, model 742, model 750, and 7400)
- Ruger guns (Deerfield carbine, Mini-14 ranch rifle, mini-thirty, model 44)
- Springfield Armory M1A
- SVT 40
- Valmet Hunter M88
- VZ.52
- Winchester guns (Model 100, Model 1905, Model 1907, Model 1910)
Also excluded are most guns that use .22 or lower caliber bullets, guns that are “manually operated by bolt, pump, lever, or slide action,” firearms that have “a permanently fixed magazine” incapable of storing more than 15 bullets, “a single or double action semiautomatic that uses recoil to cycle the action of the handgun.”
Inoperable guns and those that are considered antiques or curios under federal law are also outside the reach of the measure.
Armed forces members, armored car operators, colleges and universities, firearms dealers that lawfully store weapons, forensic laboratories, gunsmiths, gunsmithing educators and students, historical societies and museums, law enforcement officers, and probate transfers will not be impacted by the bill’s provisions around the transfer and sale of covered weapons.
The measure has no impact on weapons that Coloradans already own. Nor does it include any language that would restrict possession of any firearm.
Republicans in the Senate opposed the bill, as they have throughout the session. “This particular bill engages in a very, very challenging way for me in the conflict between a right and a privilege,” minority leader Paul Lundeen of Monument said. “I believe Senate Bill 3 seeks to, in this instance, convert a right into a privilege and gives government greater authority as we move into tomorrow than it has today.”
Other Republicans invoked the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment and argued that the bill is an overreach.
Sullivan, the chamber’s most determined advocate of stronger gun laws and the father of an Aurora theater massacre victim, forcefully argued that the bill is needed to assure the effectiveness of other gun laws.
Since 2013, state law has prohibited the sale and possession of magazines capable of holding more than 15 rounds. Yet, Sullivan and other backers of SB 25-003 say that the ban is often ineffective because many firearms can easily be equipped with detachable large-capacity magazines.
“We had at least two incidents – the Club Q shooting, the Boulder grocery store shooting – in which somebody had legally purchased a firearm that took a detachable magazine and loaded it with a high-capacity magazine,” Sullivan argued.
“And went in and had their tragedies, massacred people in both of those incidents. That was because they still had the ability to buy high-capacity magazines here in the state of Colorado, which were illegal.”
By prohibiting the sale and transfer of semiautomatic firearms designed to accept detachable magazines, SB 25-003 aims to close this loophole. Supporters say the bill complements the existing magazine limit by making it harder for individuals to acquire firearms that can readily accept illegal magazines.
Sullivan rebutted GOP claims of a Second Amendment conflict by pointing to the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal, in the face of several opportunities, to block magazine capacity bans in effect in nine states and the District of Columbia as evidence that SB 25-003 does not violate constitutional protections of gun rights.
“You continue to say it,” Sullivan said, referring to Republican claims that gun laws violate the Second Amendment. “Why? Because it sells guns.”
A number of federal appeals courts have held that the Second Amendment does not prevent states from enacting and enforcing statutes that limit gun magazine capacity. Most recently, the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled March 22 that “[a] large capacity magazine” is “an accessory or accoutrement, not an ‘Arm’ in itself.” Those devices, the en banc court said, are beyond the scope of “the text of the Second Amendment.”
The Senate voted 19-15 to approve the House amendments to the measure. Three Democrats joined the chamber’s Republicans in opposition. The House provided final approval to the bill earlier in the week, sending it back to the Senate on Monday by a 36-28 vote. Seven Democrats in the House crossed over and joined Republicans to oppose SB 25-003 in that chamber.
SB 25–003, if it becomes law, will take effect in August 2026.
Gov. Polis has indicated he is likely to sign the bill. He previously suggested changes to the first version of the bill.
Major 2nd amendment infringement by the out-of-control Colorado legislature!