a mass shooting at the King Soopers on Table Mesa Drive that killed 10 people — Tralona Bartkowiak, Suzanne Fountain, Teri Leiker, Kevin Mahoney, Lynn Murray, Rikki Olds, Neven Stanisic, Denny Stong, Jody Waters and police officer Eric Talley.

The tragedy shook Boulder to its core and thrust Colorado back into the national spotlight over another mass shooting.

A lot has changed because of that gloomy March day.

The King Soopers was closed, renovated and then reopened in 2022; Colorado enacted more gun laws in the years following the shooting; one rarely enters a King Soopers or City Market in Colorado without seeing a security officer stationed in the front of the store; and the now-27-year-old man who committed the shooting is spending the rest of his life in prison after the trial ended in 2024.

On Sunday, the community will have another opportunity to heal those wounds together at the annual at the Museum of Boulder, 2205 Broadway, Boulder.

“It was a Monday back in 2021 when the shooting happened, and I had a moment around 2 o’clock this past Monday where I was remembering that five years ago, I got the phone call from our interim city manager saying, ‘We have an active shooter. We don’t know exactly what����ap happening at King Soopers, but we’re getting ready to mobilize and understand exactly what����ap unfolding,’” recalled Pam Davis, a Boulder assistant city manager. “I remember that day very vividly.”

The Table Mesa King Soopers has been the neighborhood grocery store for Spense Havlick and his wife for about 20 years.

The former Boulder City Council member remarked on the 10 trees planted on the property to honor the victims and the Colorado-themed mural painted in the renovated store.

Even five years later, though, the pain is still there. It’s more than a grocery store, Havlick said, it’s a communal space.

“The marketplace, mercado, has been a safe place and a place where good organic food was in abundance,” Havlick said. “The staff were always friendly, courteous, and since that time, it’s been tragic to see how violence has entered schools and synagogues and churches, and even a movie theater. It’s a very unsettling thing to know that a safe place like that was violated.”

The Boulder Strong memorial gathering will look different this year than in the past. Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett will be the only politician speaking at the Sunday event.

Then, victims’ loved ones will have the opportunity to speak. Davis said the intention this year is to center more on supporting those close to the victims.

The city is also collaborating with those individuals, on developing a long-term memorial.

That engagement process began in 2024, according to Davis. City staffers then began exploring possible sites for a memorial — Davis did not divulge on potential locations — and funding options.

Later this spring, the city will tour a potential location with the victims’ families and discuss what the memorial may look like.

Davis added that the city is hammering out the specifics with the Boulder Community Foundation to create an opportunity for the public to financially support the memorial.

“Following engagement with families, we intend to then reach out to named survivors and other known individuals directly impacted by the tragedy,” Davis said in a follow-up email. She added: “We do not yet have a specific timeline for construction of a memorial and are committed to updating the public as we progress.”

Still, grieving takes time when a community is shaken by tragedy.

“The whole town is mourning. Especially South Boulder. (Five) years ago our church responded by hosting a first-of-its-kind event here in Colorado where, the June after the massacre, we cut up unwanted firearms because we had to do something,” Nicole Lamarche, the pastor at , located just west of the King Soopers, asking about the anniversary. Lamarche added: “I still can’t go into the grocery store without thinking about the day.”

Havlick, who attends Lamarche’s church, noted that the cut-up firearms were turned into gardening tools. Digging up dirt, to plant new life.

“Kind of symbolic,” Havlick remarked.

Five years after it was shaken to its core, Boulder continues to live with the fact that life must go on despite the lingering grief. On Sunday, that dirt will be turned again, to perhaps give space to nurture further healing.

“When we go to shop, we see those trees, and we see the lobby with its remarkable painting, and I think there is still some peace that comes to us,” Havlick said. “I think the community is healing as best it can.”

July 20, 2012: A gunman opens fire in a movie theater in Aurora, killing a dozen people and injuring 70.

Dec. 14, 2012: A mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, kills 20 first-grade students and six educators.

More than two dozen gun laws in Colorado have reshaped firearm ownership — and added barriers

March 20, 2013: During the Colorado legislative session following those incidents, then-Gov. John Hickenlooper signs three landmark gun laws: a 15-round limit for firearm magazines, a universal background check requirement and a new fee on gun buyers to pay for the checks.

Sept. 10, 2013: Two Democratic state senators are recalled by voters in a campaign by gun-rights advocates who are furious about the gun legislation. A third resigns later in the year.

November 4, 2014: Republicans win control of the state Senate, breaking Democratic trifecta control of both legislative chambers and the governorship. The party holds the Senate through 2018.

June 12, 2016: A gunman kills 49 people at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, in what at the time is the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

Oct. 1, 2017: In Las Vegas, a gunman fires on a crowd of fans at an outdoor country music concert, killing 60 people and injuring hundreds.

Feb. 14, 2018: A former student kills 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in the deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook.

Nov. 6, 2018: Colorado Democrats win a majority in the state Senate and regain trifecta control of state government as Gov. Jared Polis also wins election.

April 12, 2019: Polis signs the extreme risk protection order bill into law. Commonly known as the red-flag law, it allows judges to order the temporary confiscation of firearms from people suspected to be a danger to themselves or others.

March 22, 2021: A gunman kills 10 people at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder.

2021 legislative session: Colorado lawmakers pass, and Polis signs, five new gun laws: setting storage requirements for firearms, expanding background checks and adding disqualifying misdemeanors, establishing , setting requirements for reporting lost or stolen firearms, and allowing local jurisdictions to pass more restrictive gun laws than the state.

May 9, 2021: A gunman opens fire on a birthday party in Colorado Springs, killing six people and then taking his own life.

2022 legislative session: Lawmakers pass a law banning the open carrying of firearms within 100 feet of a polling place.

November 19, 2022: A shooter kills five people and wounds 22 others at Club Q, a LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs.

2023 legislative session: Lawmakers pass, and Polis signs, four new gun laws: establishing a three-day waiting period to purchase a firearm; making the minimum age 21 to purchase a firearm; expanding who can file an extreme risk protection order petition; and banning the sale, possession and creation of unserialized firearms, or so-called ghost guns.

2024 legislative session: Lawmakers and Polis enact seven new gun laws: setting new training requirements for concealed-carry permits; setting new requirements for storing firearms in a vehicle; adding a new tax on firearms, ammunition and certain parts (subsequently adopted by voters 54%-46%); adding new state licensing for firearm dealers; expanding authority for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to investigate firearm-related crimes; adding a new merchant code to track sales of guns and ammunition; and banning the carrying of firearms, including those that are concealed, in government buildings, near polling places and in educational institutions.

2025 legislative session: Lawmakers pass, and Polis signs, seven gun laws: making the theft of a firearm a felony, regardless of the weapon’s value; setting the minimum age at 21 to purchase ammunition in most circumstances; adding new requirements for gun shows; increasing enforcement capabilities for the Department of Revenue related to firearms dealers; adding permitting requirements for the purchase of certain semiautomatic firearms; creating a voluntary do-not-sell list for firearms; and establishing requirements for the Department of Public Safety to seek additional grant money for the state’s response to mass shootings.

The eight-part series is set to be released every Tuesday, other than Fourth of July, this summer and will include conversations about what it was like in the days following her father’s death, the struggles she endured while sitting through a high-profile criminal trial and how she has coped with her trauma and grief in the days in between. Guests to be featured on the podcast include singers Aly and AJ, Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty, and U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse.

In the first episode, which was released June 17, Erika Mahoney talks about her relationships with her dad, speaks to the last person he smiled at before he was killed, and interviews her family about what they were doing in the hours after hearing of the shooting.

Mahoney, who was six months pregnant and working in Monterey, California, at the time of the shooting, said in the episode that she was on a break while live on air as a news director when she answered the calls from her mother.

“What my mom said next shattered my world,” Erika Mahoney says in the first episode after describing how her mother told her there has been a shooting. “‘Eri,’ she said. ‘Dad went grocery shopping.’”

Then, after being driven home by her husband, she watched as a live TV broadcast showed her father laying dead in the parking lot, wearing the same jacket he always wore.

Throughout the first podcast episode, these anecdotal details are shared with sentimental memories Erika Mahoney has of her father. She describes his laugh, love for the outdoors and unwavering support for his children in the episode, giving life to his name and homage to his personality, which only deepens the listener’s empathy for the grief she’s faced for the past four years.

“One goal of this podcast is to open eyes to the pain that mass shootings create,” Erika Mahoney said. “Being vulnerable and raw isn’t easy but I think it����ap really important that we share these stories so ultimately we can make change.”

Since being launched, the first episode has reached No. 2 on Apple’s Society and Culture category, No. 3 in the Series category and No. 17 on Podcasts.

“The feedback was beyond my wildest imagination, because pretty much immediately people were texting me and saying how much this resonated with them and how important this is,” Mahoney said. “That meant the world to me because I’ve poured my heart into this project.”

In this week’s episode, titled, “The Other Side,” Mahoney talks about both the spiritual connection she feels to her dad and, as a journalist, what it����ap like to no longer be asking the questions, but answering them.

An additional episode is available to listeners each week when they sign up for Lemonada Premium. In last week’s additional episode, titled “Web of Pain,” Erika Mahoney spoke to a survivor of the shooting and University of Colorado Boulder researcher David Pyrooz about his study that found

Those interested can listen to “Senseless” with Erika Mahoney, from Lemonada Media, on Apple music, Spotify and Amazon music or wherever they get their podcasts.

“That����ap a pretty large number. It almost defies belief that it was so large, but really over the past year, when talking to police chiefs, victim advocates, street outreach workers, and young people embroiled in conflicts, you start to realize, well, maybe that number isn’t as shocking as you would be led to believe,” CU researcher David Pyrooz said.

Today, King Soopers survivors are still grappling with their trauma and grief.

On March 22, 2021, Logan Smith, a deli worker at the Table Mesa King Soopers, was subbing in at Starbucks kiosk inside the store. His best friend and co-worker, Denny Stong, had just stopped by on his day off to see Smith and was leaving the store when he was shot and killed.

Today, Smith, 24, hears Stong in his head: his laugh, his sarcastic comments. Smith said in his head, his friend’s voice has matured and is calmer than Smith remembers it, reflecting the four years since the shooting that ended the lives of 10 people.

“Living with that survivor’s guilt, that was the longest thing that took to heal — the acceptance that I can’t go back and change anything,” Smith said. “I can’t run over to Rikki before the shots come and shield her. I can’t tell Denny to not walk that way.”

Smith was one of about 120 people who left the store alive that day and, according to Pyrooz, is one in 15 American adults to be on the scene of a mass shooting in their lifetime.

‘Maybe that number isn’t as shocking as you would be led to believe’

Pyrooz, who co-authored the study, said researchers conducted a national survey to try to estimate lifetime exposure to mass shootings, defined as when four or more people are shot, including if the shooter is shot.

In the study, researchers wrote that for a person to be considered as on scene of a mass shooting, they must have been in the immediate vicinity of where the shooting occurred at the time it occurred — meaning bullets were fired in the person’s direction, they could see the shooter or they could hear the gunfire.

“The exposure numbers don’t feel as striking when you start breaking down these events,” he said.

According to the study, more than half of the survivors said the shooting they experienced happened in the last decade, and males and Black people were more likely to have witnessed a mass shooting than other sex or racial demographics.

The study, published by JAMA Network Open, also found income and education level had “no measurable impact” on the chances of being present or injured at a mass shooting. Those at the highest risk of being on scene of a mass shooting are of Generation Z.

‘You’re not surprised when a volcano erupts that things get set on fire’

Chris Tatum was working in the deli department when the King Soopers shooting occurred and ran back into the store three separate times throughout the course of the shooting to save people, including Elan Shakti, who was the only non-law enforcement victim injured but not killed as a result of the shooting.

Like Smith, who was the first to call 911 and helped his co-worker hide, Tatum said he doesn’t consider himself a hero and still struggles with survivor’s guilt.

“I helped a lot of people get out of the store, so I don’t — it����ap hard to describe — I have a little bit of the survivor’s guilt and I’m proud of what I did, but it����ap hard for me to say, ‘Oh, I was a hero’ or I did something truly brave,” Tatum said. “It was brave, but it����ap hard for me to recognize that within myself.”

Tatum, whose parents both worked in law enforcement and taught him to always be aware of his surroundings, said when he heard the study’s findings, he wasn’t surprised.

“I felt like I was a little bit more prepared for an incident like this — not that I ever wanted to go through it, but the statistics on how many people are hurt, how many people lose their life within these incidents, isn’t surprising,” Tatum said. “There’s a lot of violence that gets pent up within a person that makes them want to take that violence out on others. In my mind, it����ap like a volcano — you’re not surprised when a volcano erupts that things get set on fire.”

‘The people who were completely destroyed from it were pretty much forced to fend for themselves’

Along with the grief of the co-workers they lost, Tatum and Smith both said they’ve struggled mentally because of their trauma. Smith said the support for survivors has ebbed and flowed since the shooting.

“I wanted to reach the audience of the community as a witness there, as an employee there — I spoke to a lot of news agencies. That continued for a good two or three weeks after the shooting until the next mass shooting happened, and it was like a fad that turned into another fad,” Smith said. “The coverage stopped, the support slowly stopped and us witnesses were pretty much just thrown back into the world.”

Smith said he wishes Kroger and King Soopers would have provided more to survivors, such as company paid therapy or a lifelong pension.

“Obviously, they didn’t cause it, but the management of it — (the shooting) either completely drove us away from our jobs — the ones who wanted to return, returned. But the people who were completely destroyed from it were pretty much forced to fend for themselves. Kroger being a multibillion-dollar company, I think they could afford a small pension lifelong for the employees that were involved.”

Smith said he’s struggled with flashbacks and has previously found himself in a state of shock from cars backfiring and fireworks. In the first couple months, Smith struggled with sudden and uncontrolled twitching as a result of his trauma, which caused him to hit his head against a wall multiple times.

Tatum said his trauma has caused him to be more irritable and he’s always looking for the nearest exit in public places.

Pyrooz said he and his colleagues are currently researching how mass shootings impact the mental health of people who experience them in their communities or directly from being on the scene.

‘Their physical body might not be here anymore — they’re dust with the stars again or they’re below ground — but their spirit lives on forever’

Despite his flashbacks, Smith tries to focus on the silver linings, such as his relationships with others who have been impacted like Stong’s parents.

After the shooting, Stong’s father worked with Smith to fix up his son’s 2002 Chevrolet Blazer. In July 2021, on one blisteringly hot day, Smith finally finished fixing up the car.

The 24-year-old recalls getting in the driver’s seat, putting on Stong’s favorite Pink Floyd CD, and driving away with tears in his eyes.

“As you go through life,” Smith said, “at least from my perspective, the beautiful thing about it is that the ones you love, the ones you lose, their physical body might not be here anymore — they’re dust with the stars again or they’re below ground — but their spirit lives on forever.”

Starting next summer, Coloradans will have to pass a background check and a training course before they can purchase a swath of semiautomatic firearms that include most of the guns known colloquially as assault weapons. also prohibits the sale of bump stocks and rapid-fire trigger activators, which are firearm components that can increase a gun’s rate of fire.

The bill’s sponsors said it was intended to prevent future mass shootings and enforce the state’s existing prohibition on high-capacity magazines.

“We have been able to add to the safety of each and every Coloradan, especially when it comes to gun violence,” said Sen. Tom Sullivan, a Centennial Democrat who co-sponsored the bill with Sen. Julie Gonzales and Reps. Meg Froelich and Andy Boesenecker.

SB-3, which passed the legislature late last month, becomes the most sweeping gun-control measure passed by legislative Democrats in Colorado, and its passage into law was cheered Thursday by national gun-control groups Moms Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety.

Though the law doesn’t impose a complete ban on assault weapons or any type of firearm, it follows in the footsteps of previous attempts in the Capitol to fully prohibit the sale or purchase of those guns. A group of activists, including local students who’d repeatedly come to the state Capitol calling for tighter regulations, attended the bill signing in the governor’s office Thursday.

Before the bill was signed, Froelich referred to those students as the “lockdown generation” that has lived their “whole school lives in the shadow of gun violence.”

“Today’s victory is because of the countless students that showed up day after day to testify in support of this life-saving bill,” Grant Cramer, a gun violence survivor and the co-president of Denver East High School’s Students Demand Action chapter, said in a statement. “We refused to take no for an answer and now we’ve strengthened our gun safety laws in Colorado. This is proof that our voices hold power to create change, no matter how big or small.”

Ian Escalante, the executive director of the group Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, called the bill’s passage into law “one of the most disgraceful things that’s ever been done in the state.” After the bill had drawn national attention from gun-rights advocates in recent weeks, the National Rifle Association quickly put out a blistering statement criticizing Polis’ decision to sign it.

Escalante said his group was considering legal options to challenge the bill — though they likely won’t be able to pursue litigation until the bill goes into effect next year. He also said he planned to pursue “electoral accountability” in 2026, referring to challenging Democrats in competitive districts.

“We’re not going to let this law stand,” he said outside the governor’s office, “whether it’s through litigation or whether we kick these bastards out and we replace them with people who will repeal it.”

Law doesn’t apply to common handguns

The new law goes into effect Aug. 1, 2026. It applies primarily to gas-operated semiautomatic firearms that accept detachable magazines, a definition that includes the AR-15 rifle and many guns like it. It would require people pass background checks from their county sheriff. Should they clear that, they would need to take either a four- or 12-hour training course, depending on whether they’ve passed a hunter safety class.

Polis said Thursday that he wanted to keep the cost of background checks and training to below $200 per person and that he wanted additional carveouts for people who’d previously been trained with the weapons.

The law does not prohibit the possession of the weapons. It does not apply to most common handguns or shotguns, and lawmakers included that are exempt from the limitations. The law also would not require anyone to turn in their firearms.

Gun shops can also continue selling firearms covered under the law, even to people who haven’t passed background checks, so long as the weapons have been altered to have a fixed magazine — meaning that they cannot be reloaded as rapidly.

All of the legislature’s 34 Republican lawmakers — along with several Democrats — voted against the bill. Conservatives labeled it an infringement on the Second Amendment and argued it would do little to stop gun violence.

Opponents delivered thousands of petitions to Democrats and to Polis’ office requesting that the proposal be rejected, and some also left flyers at the homes of Democratic lawmakers.

A skeptic of previous proposals to ban firearms at the state level, Sullivan embraced SB-3 as a means to enforce the 2013 magazine ban passed after the 2012 Aurora movie theater shooting, in which Sullivan’s son, Alex, was killed. Other advocates and supporters said the bill seeks to prevent the mass shootings that have become a common feature of American life.

The new law’s limitations would apply to the guns used in the Aurora attack as well as to the weapons used at Columbine High School in 1999, at the Boulder King Soopers in 2021, and in a shooting spree in Lakewood and Denver in late 2021.

Polis sought changes to bill

As initially drafted, the bill would’ve broadly banned the sale or purchase of any gas-operated gun that accepted detachable magazines — which simultaneously would’ve escalated the magazine ban and enacted a de facto ban on most existing assault weapons.

But Polis balked, and his staff sought to insert a loophole into the measure allowing for sales to continue under certain circumstances.

In a late-night deal, Sullivan and Gonzales eventually acquiesced to the governor’s request. They added in the training and background check requirements after a needed supporter — embattled then-Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis — was absent ahead of a key vote.

In a statement accompanying the bill signing, Polis focused largely on the changes inserted into the bill to allow the firearms to still be sold to people who complete SB-3’s training and background check requirements.

“This bill ensures that our Second Amendment rights are protected and that Coloradans can continue to purchase the gun of their choice for sport, hunting, self defense, or home defense,” he wrote.

With SB-3, Colorado joins a growing list of states that have either instituted a permitting scheme — meaning requirements that people receive some sort of approval before they can purchase certain weapons — or an outright ban on semiautomatic rifles.

The law will almost certainly be challenged in court, though legal scholars and supporters have argued it stands on solid constitutional footing.

Legislative Democrats have enacted a growing list of firearms regulations, largely in the past few years as the party’s legislative majorities have grown. Sullivan said 40 gun-violence prevention bills have been introduced in recent years, nearly half of which have passed.

Those new laws include a mandatory waiting period and age limit for purchasing firearms, new gun-storage rules and additional gun shop licensing requirements. Lawmakers have also further limited where firearms can be carried and have expanded the legal avenues for a court to temporarily confiscate a person’s weapons.

After signing SB-3 on Thursday, Polis then signed intended to help bring federal funding to the state to respond to mass shootings.

— which would apply the new restrictions to the gun used in the Boulder attack — passed the House 36-28 on Monday. The bill’s Senate sponsors next will move to accept changes made in the House and then send the bill to Gov. Jared Polis.

The governor is expected to sign the measure. At Polis’ behest, lawmakers agreed to weaken the bill’s initial intent of fully banning the sale or purchase of the targeted weapons, unless they were altered to have a fixed magazine — meaning that they could not be reloaded as rapidly.

Still, the measure represents the strongest gun-control legislation passed by Colorado lawmakers since they began undertaking firearm regulation in earnest more than a decade ago.

The bill, which would take effect Aug. 1, 2026, broadly would prohibit the sale, purchase or transfer of gas-operated, semiautomatic firearms that accept detachable magazines — a definition that captures most firearms colloquially known as assault weapons.

Under the bill, the guns could still be purchased by people who’ve passed a background check and completed a training course. The legislation does not ban the possession of any weapon, and it would not apply to common pistols and shotguns. It also exempts , some of which are used for hunting.

The restrictions would apply to the gas-operated pistol used by the King Soopers shooter in March 2021. It would also cover the weapons used in the December 2021 Lakewood and Denver shooting spree; the 2012 Aurora movie theater shooting; and some of those used in the 1999 Columbine High School shooting.

The bill’s sponsors — Democratic Reps. Andy Boesenecker and Meg Froelich — said the bill regulates weapons with a “unique lethality” that have been used in mass shootings across Colorado and the United States.

“A generation after Columbine — (a time) of active shooter drills, of lived experience of mass shootings — you bet I have emotions,” Froelich, an Englewood legislator in her final term, said before the vote Monday. “I’m heartbroken. I’m also determined.”

“The core root of the issue”

Republicans uniformly opposed the bill in the House and the Senate. On Monday, House Republicans questioned the measure’s constitutionality and its usefulness, and they said the law wouldn’t be followed by the people most likely to commit violent crimes.

“Deal with violence,” said Rep. Anthony Hartsook, a Parker Republican. “… The tool that is used is an extension of that violence. Until you address the crimes and the people and the mental health that’s dealing with (violence), you’re not going to get to the core root of the issue.”

SB-3 is the product of months — and, in some ways, years — of debate, negotiation and broader political shifts, all against a backdrop of seemingly ceaseless mass shootings. After two years of failed attempts to pass assault weapons bans, lawmakers introduced the measure in early January with a different approach: banning the sale of many guns that accept detachable magazines.

It’s sponsored by Sen. Tom Sullivan, a Centennial Democrat whose son, Alex, died in the Aurora theater shooting. Sullivan had at more explicit assault weapons bans, but he provided pivotal support for SB-3. He cast it as a way to ratchet up enforcement of the state’s high-capacity magazine ban — which lawmakers passed after the theater shooting.

When the bill was introduced, it had enough House and Senate co-sponsors to clear both chambers. But Polis sought a loophole, a desire enabled by a group of holdout Senate Democrats and the absence of a would-be supporter, then-Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, for the vote.

After acceding to the training and background check changes, Sullivan and co-sponsor Sen. Julie Gonzales shepherded the bill out of the Senate. It was then heavily amended in the House, largely to cut costs in a tight budget year.

Once the Senate’s sponsors accept the House’s changes, the bill goes to Polis. Earlier this month, Polis said he was “confident the improvements made to the bill will … protect our Second Amendment rights here in Colorado and improve the education and gun-safety knowledge of gun owners.”

Significant new gun regulation

Should Polis sign it, SB-3 would be a cornerstone of Colorado’s growing foundation of gun control legislation, and its passage shows just how far the state has moved in the last decade.

In 2013, Democratic lawmakers passed a package of gun-control bills, including the magazine ban. That prompted a successful campaign to recall two Democratic legislators, which then chilled additional gun legislation.

That attitude has changed as voters have increasingly sent Democrats to the statehouse. Those Democrats have grown more comfortable pursuing firearm regulation in a state plagued by mass shootings.

In the past several years, the state has adopted age limits, waiting periods, storage requirements, state permitting for gun sales, and a red-flag law allowing for the temporary removal of a person’s firearms.

Still, SB-3 prompted extensive and heated debate in both chambers, including for several hours before the final vote Monday.

The state’s history of mass shootings was also omnipresent: In response to Republican criticism that the bill would limit “law-abiding citizens” from purchasing firearms, Denver Democratic Rep. Jennifer Bacon read the names of people killed in schools and grocery stores.

Each of them, she said, was a law-abiding citizen who “died of the crime of mass shooting.”

“I want us to recognize,” she said, “that we can prevent the crime of mass murder by gun.”

passed the state Senate last month after coming in for some heavy amendments that would allow otherwise-banned guns to be sold to people who complete training and a background check. The measure is set for a first committee vote in the House on Tuesday before it moves to the full chamber.

Though Republicans have promised to fight the bill and gun-rights groups have pledged to sue, should it pass, the proposal has sufficient Democratic support to clear the legislature and head to Gov. Jared Polis.

Polis, a Democrat, was leery of the stronger version of the bill but is now expected to sign it, said Rep. Andrew Boesenecker, a Fort Collins Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors. The measure would be the most sweeping gun-control law adopted in the state, even amid Democrats’ many recent efforts to tighten firearm regulations in Colorado.

Here’s a closer look at the bill — and the debate around it.

What exactly would the bill do?

Now that’s it been amended, SB-3 would generally limit the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms that accept detachable magazines and are gas-operated. That applies to the group of guns that are colloquially known as “assault weapons,” such as the AR-15 rifle.

There are loopholes. At the behest of Polis and some moderate Senate Democrats, the bill was amended so it would still allow people to purchase the otherwise-banned firearms under certain conditions. If buyers had previously passed a hunter’s education course, they would need to take a four-hour training session. If they hadn’t, they’d need a 12-hour course.

They would then need to be fingerprinted and background-checked by their county sheriff in a process that’s identical to . That process includes ensuring a person doesn’t have a substance-use disorder and isn’t the subject of a protection order, among other things. The sheriff can also determine if people are a danger to themselves or others; if they are, the sheriff can withhold approval cards.

The measure would ban firearm components that make semiautomatic weapons fire faster. That includes bump stocks, which were briefly banned federally after they were used in the 2017 , America’s deadliest mass shooting. The sale of those components would be banned flat out, regardless of a person’s training or vetting.

Where does Polis stand?

Asked by The Denver Post if the governor now supported the bill, a Polis spokesman said the governor “appreciates” that lawmakers worked with his office on amendments to address gun violence and uphold “our freedom and Colorado’s rich hunting and sport shooting culture.”

Would the bill outlaw possession or require people to turn over their guns?

No. The bill applies only to the sale, purchase, transfer and manufacture of the weapons. It would not be illegal to possess any of the banned firearms, and anyone who owns them now — or before the law would go into effect on Sept. 1 — would be able to keep them without any additional training required.

Gun stores have warned that the proposal would harm their businesses, given the popularity of the AR-15 and other covered guns, though the exemptions would still allow them to be sold to approved customers.

Which guns are covered?

The bill applies mostly to gas-operated, semiautomatic weapons that accept detachable magazines. That essentially covers most — if not all — of the so-called assault weapons common in mass shootings, like the AR-15 and similar guns, two experts told The Post.

Those weapons work by recycling the gas created when the bullet is fired to then cycle the gun and ready it to fire again. They also generally take detachable magazines — which can be rapidly swapped out and, in the case of high-capacity magazines, have been banned in the state for more than a decade.

Another amendment added in the Senate , some of which are used for hunting. Those include some guns that are old enough to have seen action in World War II. But it also includes weapons that are substantially similar to the AR-15, said Aaron Brudenell, a forensic science consultant and firearms expert who conducts trainings for .

Broadly speaking, the bill wouldn’t apply to common handguns, revolvers or shotguns. Most common semiautomatic pistols — like Glocks — are operated by their own recoil, not recycled gas, and thus wouldn’t be covered.

But the bill sponsors are also seeking to curtail pistol variants of the AR-15, the measure would cover some handguns, like . Those handguns use the same operating system as AR-variant pistols, like the one used by the shooter at the Boulder King Soopers in 2021, and would thus be caught in the crossfire of the bill’s efforts to block those weapons.

Brudenell questioned whether the bill could be stretched to cover other common handguns, though the bill’s sponsors and advocates have been adamant it would not.

Boesenecker acknowledged that “a relatively small portion of the (handgun) market” would be covered by the bill, but he said those guns have available alternatives that wouldn’t be affected.

So, then, is this a ban?

That’s a tricky question. The bill was initially described by its sponsors as a way to enforce the state’s 2013 high-capacity magazine ban. But now that the bill would still allow weapons that accept those components to be sold, that argument has lost some ground.

It’s also not quite a ban, since Coloradans could buy AR-15s under the law so long as they passed a training requirement and background vetting.

But such an argument won’t assuage gun-rights groups, which argue that their ability to purchase firearms shouldn’t be infringed at all.

And the loopholes have led to some teeth gritting from the bill’s supporters: After the measure was weakened in the Senate, the advocacy group said it “strongly preferred” the first version but was still happy with the bill’s present state.

How would Colorado’s law stack up?

A number of states have enacted bans on so-called assault weapons, and others have adopted vetting and training requirements before a person can purchase specific weapons, said Alison Shih, senior counsel for , which is backing the bill.

“Many other states have some kind of permit-to-purchase (requirement) for firearms, and many of them have them for all firearms,” she said. “… A third of the U.S. population lives in a state that outright bans a subset of military-style firearms.”

SB-3 is unique in that it would limit the sale of those controversial firearms unless a person is trained and vetted, said Andrew Willinger, the executive director of the at Duke University School of Law.

It’s also unique in that it focuses on certain components — like gas operation and detachable magazines, he said. Other states ban a list of specific weapons, and past unsuccessful bills in the Colorado legislature took that approach.

Is any of this constitutional?

Should this bill reach Polis’ desk and be signed into law, it would almost certainly be challenged immediately in court.

Willinger said the bill was likely on solid constitutional footing, even in a judicial system topped by a conservative U.S. Supreme Court that’s taken a more expansive view of the Second Amendment. The high court turned away to other gun control bills — including a weapons ban and a permitting requirement — and lower courts have upheld the laws in other states, Willinger and Shih said.

Still, Shih and Willinger said they expected the Supreme Court to take up an assault weapons case at some point.

Willinger said the training and vetting requirements added in the Colorado Senate likely put the bill on even firmer ground under the Supreme Court’s , which further expanded gun rights. (Shih said Everytown was confident the original bill would’ve been upheld, too.)

“I suspect the court will take a case like that at some point, but I think the analysis is really quite different when you think about the one Colorado is considering,” Willinger said. “You then basically have an argument that the state can make — that this is just akin to the type of objective licensing approach that states use for conceal-carry, for example. The only thing you have to do is just comply with the series of objective requirements, taking these classes and so on.”

The union bill — — passed on a 22-12 party-line vote and was greeted by cheers in the balcony overlooking the chamber. The gun bill — — passed on a 19-15 vote in the early afternoon, with three Democrats voting no.

The two measures now head to the House, where both already have sufficient support to clear the chamber and head for Gov. Jared Polis’ desk.

But Polis has viewed both measures skeptically and has sought changes to moderate them. Tuesday’s votes came five days after a marathon floor debate on the two bills, in part fueled by negotiations with Polis’ office. Both measures are backed by Democrats and opposed by Republicans.

While lawmakers have not agreed to any changes on the labor bill, Polis’ skepticism prompted a significant change to the gun proposal late Thursday night.

As initially written, the measure would’ve banned the sale of many semiautomatic weapons that accept detachable magazines. But after days of negotiations with Polis, the bill’s sponsors — Democratic Sens. Tom Sullivan and Julie Gonzales — agreed to a change that still would allow the guns to still be sold, so long as any buyer first takes a training course and passes a background check.

That change was sought by Polis and a group of moderate Senate Democrats who planned to oppose the bill unless it was amended. The situation was further complicated by the absence of the now-former Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, who was a nominal supporter of the bill and likely would have provided the vote needed to clear the Senate without Polis’ change, had she been in attendance Thursday.

Jaquez Lewis resigned the legislature this week amid an ethics investigation into her treatment of legislative aides.

SB-3 applies to firearms that are gas-operated and accept detachable magazines, which effectively means guns colloquially considered assault weapons. It does not apply to most handguns, which are typically recoil-operated, or to common shotguns. The bill would apply to handguns that are gas-operated, such as the one used by the Boulder King Soopers shooter in 2021.

The bill still would not prohibit the possession of any weapon. Another amendment added during the earlier debate exempted a lengthy list of hunting rifles and other firearms, some of which are decades-old.

Sullivan’s son, Alex, was killed in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting. Before the vote, Sullivan, a Centennial Democrat, said he wished he had been in the theater that night instead of his son, and that his son stood in his place now.

“Because forever he will be better than me. I know that he would’ve had the ability to try to get through to people what this all means,” Sullivan said. “I’m not a threat to the 2nd Amendment. It’s the 45,000 Americans who are dying by gun violence each and every year.”

The bill has sufficient House sponsors to pass that chamber, though it will likely have to weather an extensive Republican filibuster.

The House is unlikely to unwind the loophole added by the Senate, said Rep. Meg Froelich, one of the bill’s sponsors in the House.

The labor bill — — also already has sufficient support to pass the House. The bill would eliminate a requirement in state law that organized workers pass a second election before they can negotiate a provision in their union contracts that governs the collection of dues and fees. The bill would not require any employee pay union dues or fees; those would still be subject to union negotiations and approval by the union members.

Denver Democratic Sen. Robert Rodriguez, one of the bill’s sponsors, urged his colleagues to support the bill and told them the state shouldn’t be a target for corporations “because our workers have less rights.”

The bill is a priority for Democrats and their union allies, and five former U.S. labor secretaries released a letter to Polis and to lawmakers last week urging the bill’s passage.

But the proposal has been opposed by business groups, like the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, and by Republican lawmakers. Polis has also said he’s leery of the change and that he wants the measure’s Democratic sponsors to reach a deal with the business community.

Short of such a deal, he’s told lawmakers that he intends to veto the bill.

No such deal has been reached yet, though Rodriguez told reporters last week that sponsors and labor groups have exchanged offers.

The measure would cover a large swath of guns that are colloquially known as assault weapons. passed the Senate’s State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on a party-line, 3-2 vote after eight hours of testimony in a packed room in the state Capitol.

The measure now heads to the full Senate, where its passage is virtually assured. Eighteen votes are needed to clear the 35-seat chamber, and 18 Democrats — not including a newly appointed senator who voted for the bill Tuesday night — have already signed on as co-sponsors.

From there, the bill will head to the House, where it has similar levels of support.

The bill’s sponsors, Democratic Sens. Tom Sullivan and Julie Gonzales, argued that it was the next step in enforcing Colorado’s 11-year-old ban on high-capacity magazines.

Sullivan, whose son, Alex, was killed in the 2012 Aurora movie theater shooting, said the magazine ban has been ignored, thus requiring lawmakers to pursue a ban on the sale or transfer of firearms that accept the components. The measure would also ban rapid-fire trigger activators and bump stocks, which increase the fire rate of weapons.

Marking a novel approach to limiting gun sales, SB-3 would not cover common shotguns, revolvers or pistols, unless they are gas-operated. It also would not make it illegal to possess semiautomatic weapons that accept detachable magazines.

The measure would essentially require gun manufacturers to modify semiautomatic rifles to have fixed magazines that must be loaded, round by round, from the top of the weapon, rather than through magazines that can be easily swapped out when bullets run out.

“This is an enforcement of the high-capacity magazine ban,” Sullivan said before the vote. “Something that we should have been working on since 2013, but we didn’t. And it took 11 years for us to get back on it and do something about it. That����ap what we’re doing today. This is the next step forward. And then we’ll see where we go from here.”

For hours Tuesday, supporters and opponents took turns defending and railing against the proposal.

East High School students recalled the shootings and lockdowns on their campus in recent years, while local and national advocates for gun control groups defended the bill’s legality and workability.

The specter of Colorado’s — and America’s — grim and steady drumbeat of mass shootings was also ever-present Tuesday: Two supporters said they were alumni of Virginia Tech, the site of a 2007 shooting that left 32 people dead. Some supporters testified about shopping at the Boulder King Soopers where 10 people were killed by a shooter in 2021.

Jane Dougherty, whose sister was killed in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, testified about receiving her sister’s cleaned clothing in a box.

“We sanitize it because we don’t want to see it,” said Dougherty, who has testified in favor of past Colorado bills that were attempts at more overt bans on so-called assault weapons. “But we have to see it. We have to see what high-capacity magazines will do to your family members.”

The bill was opposed by Republicans, gun-rights advocacy groups and gun store owners. Firearms dealers warned that the ban would push them out of business.

JD Murphree of Triple J Armory said it would “devastate” gun stores. Gun- rights groups pledged to sue — a threat they have pursued, to mixed results, on recent gun-control bills.

Sen. Rod Pelton, a Cheyenne Wells Republican, said the measure was unconstitutional and violated the Second Amendment. Several opponents also accused the legislature of essentially seeking to ban all semiautomatic rifles.

“A gun ban by another name is still a gun ban,” Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams told the committee.

Sullivan denied that SB-3 was an assault weapons ban, and he said he didn’t support such a policy. Indeed, he said by fellow Democrats over the past two years to pass a more explicit ban.

Governor’s position unclear

A Centennial Democrat, Sullivan is largely seen as the legislature’s de facto point-person on gun legislation. His backing of this latest iteration — coupled with more overt support in both chambers — means the bill is likely to pass and reach Gov. Jared Polis’ desk.

Polis’ position on the measure is unclear; a spokeswoman did not immediately return a message seeking comment Wednesday morning.

A potential snag comes from the bill’s estimated cost: The Colorado Bureau of Investigation projects that the bill would cost $4.6 million to implement — a hefty price tag in a session when the legislature faces a $700 million budget hole.

But a nonpartisan fiscal analyst working for the legislature essentially rejected that estimate and said there would be no cost to the state. Sullivan also criticized the CBI’s estimates, and he accused the agency of “fluffing” the numbers, potentially on behalf of a leery Polis, to make it easier to set the bill aside.

High financial projections are often a quiet kiss of death for legislation, and lawmakers have long griped that the estimates can be artificially inflated to sideline bills. Sullivan noted that the CBI’s estimate included the need for several $90,000 microscopes and a remodeling of one of the agency’s labs.

Shortly before the committee vote, Sullivan said he was undaunted by the opposition seated behind him, adding that he wished more firearms dealers and gunowners had sought out proactive conversations before.

“When I got myself here, I made sure that we’re going to have these kinds of conversations every single year while I am here — while people in my district vote for me and bring me here, while I beat back recalls against me for what I think is the right thing to do,” Sullivan said. “So we’ll keep having these conversations, and I welcome these conversations. Because we’re going down the right path with this.”

The new bill spearheaded by Democrats is aimed at building upon existing gun laws by prohibiting the sale, manufacture or purchase of semiautomatic weapons that use detachable magazines. It is set to be introduced in the early days of the legislative session, which begins Wednesday.

Detachable magazines feed ammunition into the gun and can be swapped out when empty. The measure would also ban rapid-fire trigger activators and bump stocks, which are components that increase the fire rate of semiautomatic rifles and were infamously used in America’s deadliest mass shooting, in Las Vegas in 2017.

The bill, sponsored by Centennial Democrat Sen. Tom Sullivan, would not prohibit possession of the targeted firearms, and anyone who possessed the weapons before a ban went into effect could keep them. The measure would level criminal penalties — as well as the loss of licensure — against sellers who violated it.

Sullivan cast the bill as a way to enforce the state’s 11-year-old ban on high-capacity magazines — which, he said, are still sold in Colorado despite the prohibition. The components were used in both the Boulder King Soopers shooting and the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs, Sullivan said.

“So instead of walking into the King Soopers with multiple magazines that (the shooter) just switched out and kept on firing, he would either have to stop and manually reload, which gives law enforcement and the public the ability to take some kind of an action … or he would have to walk in there with multiple AR-style weapons with attached magazines,” said Sullivan, whose son, Alex,  was killed in the 2012 Aurora movie theater shooting, in an interview.

The proposal is not a ban on certain semiautomatic rifles referred to as assault weapons, though its parameters would prohibit the sale of a wide swath of high-powered guns colloquially considered to be in that category. Sullivan has previously opposed efforts by Democratic lawmakers to ban assault weapons at the state level, and one such attempt passed the House before dying in the Senate last spring.

Sullivan reiterated his opposition to a state-level assault weapons ban, though he said he supported a nationwide prohibition.

Those types of firearms could still be sold under his bill, albeit in different form: If manufacturers and gun owners want to continue selling and using the weapons, Sullivan said, they would need to adjust to firearms that can only be loaded slowly, bullet by bullet, from the top of the weapon — not through detachable magazines.

Sullivan criticized firearm manufacturers and dealers for continuing to sell high-capacity magazines in the state, and he questioned why law enforcement had not done more to proactively crack down on their sale. The effort to ban bump stocks comes after , which drew national scrutiny after the in 2017.

The proposal does not cover standard handguns or shotguns, though the prohibition would include the type of pistol used in the Boulder King Soopers shooting that left 10 people dead in March 2021.

The bill is a new approach to limiting the type of high-powered weapons frequently used in mass shootings, which have become a grimly frequent occurrence in Colorado and in America. While other states have banned certain semiautomatic rifles outright, Sullivan said a similar expansion of a magazine ban hasn’t been used elsewhere.

It also represents the latest step of years of Colorado Democrats’ attempts to better regulate gun sales. Last year, lawmakers passed a bill to require that gun dealers hold a state license, on top of the existing federal requirement. (Gun dealers who sell weapons prohibited by Sullivan’s bill could lose their state license if it becomes law.) Legislators also directed additional money to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to better investigate illegal sales of guns and gun components.

The new bill will be co-sponsored by Democratic Reps. Andrew Boesenecker and Meg Froelich. Boesenecker co-sponsored the state licensure bill last year, while Froelich and Sullivan backed the measure to increase the investigative bureau’s budget to pursue illegal gun sales.

“What we’re able to recognize pretty clearly is that particular kinds of firearms, when paired with a high-capacity magazine, have a lethality that are just unparalleled,” Boesenecker said.

The Capitol’s minority Republicans, who have uniformly opposed gun control bills in recent years, almost certainly will oppose the measure. Republican lawmakers have railed against previous legislation, including the more sweeping assault weapons ban proposals, as government overreach and infringements on the Second Amendment.

On Friday, Rocky Mountain Gun Owners executive director Ian Escalante said his group is “absolutely going to oppose this bill,” which he argued violated the U.S. Constitution. He said the organization will probably file a lawsuit challenging it, should it pass.

“Realistically, you might as well try to ban these firearms,” he said, referring to Sullivan’s bill as a de facto ban on the weapons. “All manufacturers are going to have to remanufacture these firearms and make them with fixed magazines. I don’t know how that would work.”

Sullivan noted that Colorado voters in November passed a new tax on gun and ammunition sales — which, he argued, showed voters’ priorities.

“The people of the state of Colorado have mandated that our legislators do something about the public health crisis that is gun violence, and that����ap what we’re going to do,” he said. “It’d be great if we had partners in that from the minority party, from the industry. I haven’t seen that (yet), going on my seventh year down here at the General Assembly.”