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Colorado gun control bills progress; semi-auto ban unlikely

Students from Denver's East High School flood the State Capitol to demand lawmakers take action against gun violence on Friday, Mar. 3, 2023.
Lucas Brady Woods
/
KUNC
Students from Denver's East High School flood the State Capitol to demand lawmakers take action against gun violence on Friday, Mar. 3, 2023. A package of gun control bills progressed in the state legislature.

In a vast hall of Colorado's Capitol, hundreds sat between columns for a hearing Wednesday on a sweeping bill to ban semi-automatic firearms months after a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs — the latest in the state's long history of massacres.

Rep. Elisabeth Epps, the bill's sponsor, wiped tears from her eyes during her opening remarks as she appealed to her fellow Democrats — who control the state's legislature and are the bill's only hurdle — to pass the ban.

"Which school was it when you realized, 'Babies? We aren't going to ban them now?'" said Epps. "I'm scared of what it says about us, if when there are 69 members of my party in the body, we don't run this bill."

The Legislature has passed a package of narrower gun control measures that is expected to be signed by the state's governor — more closely aligning Colorado with the liberal strongholds of California and New York. But the sweeping ban on semi-automatic firearms faces much stiffer odds and illustrates that even Democratic-controlled statehouses don't have free rein on overhauling laws rooted deep in American culture.

"I think we've discovered the edge and the limit of how progressive this state wants to be," Rep. Mike Lynch, the Republican House minority leader, said in a press conference outside the hearing.

Epps said the bill is likely to be significantly pared back to effectively ban bump stocks — a firearm attachment that increases the rate of fire — a concession to other Democrats.

Over 500 people signed up to testify at the proposal's first hearing — the vast majority in opposition to the ban — and tensions rose as the hearing got underway, with audience applause being swiftly silenced by committee members.

The other gun-control proposals that have found broad Democratic support include strengthening red-flag laws, raising the firearm purchasing age to 21, opening the gun industry up to legal liability and installing a three-day waiting period after buying a gun.

In one of the first testimonies of the hearing, Austin Hein of the National Association for Gun Rights said that none of the bills will do "anything to address the root cause of the mental health, overly medicated children in fatherless homes and gun-free zones that are plaguing our state."

Hein added that, particularly the semi-automatic ban, which includes a number of pistols and shotguns, "will leave law-abiding citizens defenseless to the alarming rise of violent crime caused by the progressive criminal justice reform."

Hein vowed to lodge a lawsuit before the ink dries on any such bill that is passed.

Mark Shusterman, a member of the band Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, pushed back in testimony Wednesday.

"I have a half-dozen friends affected directly by an assault weapon, and I know exactly zero people that have defended themselves with a firearm of any kind," he said.

Colorado has suffered some of the nation's most notorious massacres, including 13 killed in 1999 at Columbine High School, 12 killed in 2012 at an Aurora movie theater, 10 killed in 2021 at a Boulder supermarket and five killed last November at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub.

Just last month, after a student shot two administrators in a Denver high school, waves of chanting students and teachers filled Colorado's Capitol demanding that gun-control laws be passed.

The Capitol's halls were filled with high schoolers locked in debate with lawmakers. Others lay on the marble floors in front of Gov. Jared Polis' office until he appeared to hear their grievances. One student who disrupted proceedings in the House was carried out by law enforcement.

While deeply Democratic states such as California, New York and Massachusetts have restricted semi-automatic rifles, the proposal in Colorado has revealed divides even among Democrats and incited ongoing contention between the urban and rural parts of the state.

Democrats have collectively forced the other gun control measures through the House, Senate and toward the governor's desk, but the semi-automatic firearm ban has not received the same urgency. Polis, a Democrat, has demurred when asked questions about the ban. It is a state where Democrats know well that going too far on gun laws can put them in political peril.

A decade ago, Colorado voters ousted two state lawmakers in first-ever recall elections that came in reaction to the Democrats' support for tougher gun laws in the aftermath of the Aurora theater shooting.

While Democrats control both of Colorado's chambers, Republican lawmakers have put up a vigorous fight against the other measures this year, filibustering into the wee hours of the morning as debates spilled into long weekends. The attempt to stymie what Republicans considered burdensome and unconstitutional policies finally ran aground when Speaker of the House Rep. Julie McCluskie, a Democrat, invoked a rarely used rule — considered the nuclear option — to shut down debate and push the bills to a vote.

Republicans decried the move as silencing their voices and, by extension, the voices of their constituents.

The measures are being considered as Colorado, along with a number of cities including Boulder, are being sued by groups including the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners over a statewide 15-round magazine capacity limit and a semi-automatic rifle ban. The gun rights groups were encouraged by a recent Supreme Court decision that set new standards for courts evaluating gun laws.

Copyright 2023 Associated Press. All rights reserved.