An assault weapons ban had momentum until Colorado Democrats dropped it

Democrats in the Colorado Legislature might finally succeed in passing groundbreaking restrictions on semiautomatic firearms.

They have introduced a bill that would ban the sale of semiautomatic rifles and shotguns that can accept detachable magazines. Numerous lawmakers have signed on, and the bill already cleared its first hurdle when it passed a Senate committee vote last week.

But Senate Bill 25-3 is an odd departure from previous efforts to regulate semiautomatic rifles. It purports to better enforce the intent of a law regarding high-capacity magazines. But the bill’s unusual provisions have caused some confusion about its practicality and potential impact, and its central restriction, as gun rights advocates have noted, raises a safety concern.

SB-3 might pass, and it might help save lives. But, at least at this stage of the bill’s progression, it has muddled lawmakers’ message on gun violence prevention.

During the 2023 legislative session, progressive Democrats for the first time introduced an assault weapons ban. It would have prohibited the making, buying and selling of assault weapons but not the possession of them. Supporters at the time argued that assault weapons are uniquely dangerous, partly because they accept detachable magazines, which allow shooters to easily reload, but also due to other features, such as the high velocity at which they fires bullets, which “damages and destroys tissues as it travels through the body,” according to the bill text.

Reporting by news outlets substantiated this characterization. “The AR-15 fires bullets at such a high velocity … that it can eviscerate multiple people in seconds,” The Washington Post reported in an extensive 2023 investigation. “A single bullet lands with a shock wave intense enough to blow apart a skull and demolish vital organs. The impact is even more acute on the compact body of a small child.”

An AR-15-style assault weapon was used in most of the deadliest mass killings in America between 2012 and 2023, including two massacres in Colorado.

Eight House members and two senators signed on to the bill, which didn’t make it past its first committee hearing. But during last year’s legislative session, Democrats again introduced an assault weapons ban, and that one attracted many more House sponsors — 31 total — as well as a Senate sponsor. In a Colorado first, it passed the House chamber, before faltering in the Senate in the session’s last days. Supporters of the bill emphasized that assault rifles were “weapons of war” not fit for civilian use.

This year’s bill takes a different approach. It would ban the manufacture, sale, purchase and transfer of semiautomatic rifles and shotguns and gas-operated semiautomatic handguns that can accept detachable magazines. In other words, assault weapons would be allowed, as long as they have fixed magazines.

This sends a mixed message. Many of the Democratic lawmakers who signed onto it, such as prime sponsors Sen. Julie Gonzales and Rep. Andrew Boesenecker, also previously supported an assault weapons ban. Does that mean they changed their mind about the special menace posed by assault weapons? If assault weapons are “not suitable for self-defense and are not well-suited for hunting, sporting, or any purpose other than mass killing,” as the bill they sponsored last year asserted, what makes them less dangerous now?

They might respond that precluding a shooter’s ability to rapidly exchange magazines eliminates a measure of an assault weapon’s lethality. But even by their own account in previous bills, magazines were just one component that made assault weapons intolerably hazardous.

Plus, Colorado already has a ban on large-capacity magazines. Supporters of SB-3 say the bill would help officials enforce rules against large-capacity magazines, which experts say are still readily available in the state. But it’s not clear why an assault weapons ban, in addition to a large-capacity magazine ban, would not achieve the same result — fewer assault weapons would naturally mean fewer uses for illegal magazines.

The bill’s novelty is further cause to doubt its wisdom. Gun rights advocates note that manufacturers do not even produce the sort of fixed-magazine firearms the bill envisions. “These guns don’t exist,” Ava Flanell, a Colorado Springs firearms trainer, said in a recent podcast. Denver 7 reported that the measure is “the first of its kind in this country.”

This all raises serious questions about the bill’s capacity to withstand a legal challenge, given that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that such laws must not stray from the historical tradition of U.S. gun regulation. It also engenders skepticism about the honesty of the Democrats’ pitch, since it gives credibility to opponents’ charge that their goal “is to ban the weapons outright.”

Moreover, the bill seems ignorant of a significant safety concern. Responsible firearm owners understand that a detachable magazine, whether in a pistol or AR-15, allows them to safely clear the gun and fix malfunctions. This deficiency in the bill is one of the reasons that Democratic Sen. Nick Hinrishsen publicly opposed the bill as drafted.

Colorado Democrats have succeeded in recent years in enacting significant gun violence prevention measures. An assault weapons ban was an important component of their efforts to protect residents from the slaughter they’ve seen in schools, theaters, grocery stores and other public places. Its trajectory was toward ultimate adoption. But they have abandoned that progress in exchange for an uncertain alternative.