Colorado Democrats move forward with their plans to restrict its resident's Second Amendment rights further by passing a bill that would ban the sale or purchase of so-called assault weapons.
On Wednesday, after more than 12 hours of testimony and debate, state Democrats cleared the first hurdle in a 7-3 party-line vote in the House Judiciary Committee after a late amendment removed financial penalties, which would’ve routed the bill to another committee, and replaced them with a petty offense charge.
The bill now heads to the House floor where it will be met with its final two votes before going to the Senate.
HB24-1292 would make a semi-automatic handgun, regardless of caliber, be banned if it has a detachable magazine and a threaded barrel. The “assault ban” also restricts the ownership of semi-automatic firearms that do not take a detachable magazine by making clear that any such handgun“may be readily modified to accept a detachable magazine.”
“We know about the ever-present threat of mass shootings, public shootings, with few to zero injured survivors, but fatalities in the double digits … we know that those continue unchecked but for courageous, data-driven policy change,” Rep. Elisabeth Epps (D-CO) said.
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Breitbart News pointed out that suppressors are beneficial to hunting and would make no sense to ban them in the state.
Ironically, threaded barrels do not make bullets fly faster nor do they speed up the rate of fire. Rather, they serve to allow suppressors to be used to protect hearing and the environment, and Colorado is one of 42 states in which suppressors are legal.
Suppressors are so beneficial to the environment that they are even legal to use while hunting in Colorado.
The American Suppressor Association lists Colorado as one of 41 states in which hunting with suppressors is legal, but Democrats want to ban semiautomatic handguns with threaded barrels.
During testimony, critics argued that the bill would infringe upon Colorado resident's rights to own certain handguns for self-defense.
Rod Brandenburg, an owner of a firearm store in the state, said that he has “been in business over 75 years, we have sold over 100,000 guns that have never been involved in a mass shooting, and you want to penalize us.”
Others argued that the bill would ban several different handguns and other firearms due to its content being so broad.
“You cannot legislate away evil, period,” firearms instructor, Amanda Hardin said. “But you can defend yourself against evil. I want to be clear, this is not an assault weapons ban bill. The language in this bill makes this a gun ban.”
