CO House passes semiautomatic firearm ban, sending it to State Senate

• Colorado’s Democratic-controlled House has handed a invoice to ban the sale and switch of semiautomatic firearms.
• The invoice handed with a 35-27 vote and is now heading to the Democratic-led state Senate.
• The laws faces challenges within the Senate, the place Democrats have a slimmer majority.

Colorado’s Democratic-controlled House on Sunday handed a invoice that might ban the sale and switch of semiautomatic firearms, a serious step for the laws after roughly the identical invoice was swiftly killed by Democrats final yr.

The invoice, which handed on a 35-27 vote, is now on its means to the Democratic-led state Senate. If it passes there, it may convey Colorado in keeping with 10 different states — together with California, New York and Illinois — which have prohibitions on semiautomatic weapons.

But even in a state tormented by among the nation’s worst mass shootings, such laws faces headwinds.

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Colorado’s political historical past is purple, shifting blue solely not too long ago. The invoice’s probabilities of success within the state Senate are decrease than they had been within the House, the place Democrats have a 46-19 majority and a much bigger far-left flank. Gov. Jared Polis, additionally a Democrat, has indicated his wariness over such a ban.

Visitors are seen on the west steps of the Colorado Capitol on April 23, 2023, in Denver. Colorado’s Democratic-controlled House on Sunday handed a invoice that might ban the sale and switch of semiautomatic firearms. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

Last yr, an identical invoice died in committee, with some Democratic lawmakers citing considerations over the sweep of a ban and guarantees they made to their constituents to keep away from authorities overreach affecting most gun homeowners’ rights.

Democrats final yr handed and Polis signed into regulation 4 less-expansive gun management payments. Those included elevating the age for getting any gun from 18 to 21; establishing a three-day ready interval between the acquisition and receipt of a gun; strengthening the state’s purple flag regulation; and rolling again some authorized protections for the firearms business, exposing it to lawsuits from the victims of gun violence.

Those legal guidelines had been signed months after 5 individuals had been killed at an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs final yr. Soon, the state will mark the twenty fifth anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School capturing that killed 13 individuals. Other mass shootings in Colorado embrace 12 individuals killed in 2012 at an Aurora movie show and 10 individuals killed in 2021 at a Boulder grocery store.

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“This is the state where the modern era of the mass shooting began with Columbine,” Democratic Rep. Javier Mabrey stated in urging fellow lawmakers to be part of different states that ban semiautomatic weapons.

Republicans decried the laws as an onerous encroachment on the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. They argued that psychological sickness and individuals who don’t worth life — not weapons — are the problems that must be addressed. People with in poor health intent can use different weapons, akin to knives, to hurt others, they argued.

Democrats responded that semiautomatic weapons could cause way more injury in a brief time period.

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