Colorado lawmakers will be considering a new gun control measure aimed at prohibiting the manufacture, purchase or sale of semiautomatic firearms, including “a gas-operated semiautomatic handgun with a detachable magazine,” reinforcing the notion that Democrats have become the “party of gun prohibition.”
According to the Senate Bill 3 bill summary, “The bill prohibits knowingly manufacturing, distributing, transferring, selling, or purchasing a specified semiautomatic firearm; except that a person may transfer a specified semiautomatic firearm to an heir, an individual residing in another state, or a federally licensed firearm dealer.”
The 10-page measure includes an exemption for .22-caliber firearms, single- or double-action semiautomatic handguns which use recoil to cycle their actions and firearms which are manually operated by bolt, pump, lever or slide action. Translation: It would not prohibit common semi-auto pistols used for personal protection, competition, recreational shooting, or hunting.
SB3 has several sponsors in both the state Senate and House of Representatives, and according to the Colorado Sun, it “appears to have a better chance of reaching the governor’s desk given that it has the support of state Sen. Tom Sullivan, a Centennial Democrat whose son was murdered in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, and given the number of cosponsors.”
Primary sponsors are Senators Julie Gonzales of Denver, Tom Sullivan from Centennial, and Rep. Meg Froelich, an Englewood Democrat, according to Colorado Politics.
However, the Colorado Sun acknowledged there is some skepticism whether SB3 will be signed by Gov. Jared Polis if it lands on his desk.
Centennial State Republicans will likely unanimously oppose the legislation.
Should SB3 become law, current owners of semiautomatic rifles, shotguns and the affected pistols will be able to keep the guns they already own, the newspaper said.
Some political observers have noted that anti-gun Democrats, faced with a second Donald Trump term and with Congress controlled by Republicans, will now focus their energies on state legislatures. According to a Jan. 4 article in The Guardian, gun control proponents believe they are in better shape now than during Trump’s first term. John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, the group supported by anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg, has grown while the National Rifle Association over the past few years has floundered.
“Democrats are now completely solid on the issue of gun safety,” Feinblatt said. “Our grassroots army has grown substantially in the last eight years and is almost three times the size of the NRA.”
And that includes Colorado, once a Rocky Mountain stronghold of hunters and gun owners, but in recent years an influx of liberals from other states, such as California, has changed the political landscape. They vote for Democrats.
It is the same story along the entire West Coast, from Sacramento to Salem and Olympia, where legislatures and governors’ offices are all Democrat-controlled.
