This year’s builds off the landmark 2019 measure creating the state’s red flag law. That law allows certain people to petition the courts for a temporary restraining order to prohibit people deemed a danger to themselves or others from possessing firearms.

The newest expansion grows the list to include behavioral health co-responders and allows for health care and educational institutions to file the petitions.

“This law will help protect Coloradans and our communities from senseless gun violence,” Polis, a Democrat, said in a signing statement. “Colorado’s red flag law has been successfully used over 370 times though 2024, keeping Coloradans safe across the state.

“This updated legislation builds on our strong law to promote safe gun ownership and expands the list of those who can keep our communities safe through petitioning a protection order.”

The new law takes effect immediately. It was sponsored by Sens. Tom Sullivan and Julie Gonzales and Reps. Meg Froelich and Jenny Willford, all Democrats.

“Our law will help prevent gun crimes and suicides to save countless Colorado lives while safeguarding people’s rights through a proven process,” Froelich said in a news release after the signing. “… We’re strengthening this gun violence prevention law to save more lives and make Colorado a safer place to live for all.”

Polis signed the original red flag bill into law during his first year in office. This expansion was passed during the term-limited governor’s final legislative session.

His tenure has been marked by a steady increase in firearm regulations.

As it stands, would expand on the state’s existing ban on unserialized “ghost guns” by prohibiting anyone from using a 3D printer to manufacture guns or components like large-capacity magazines and rapid-fire trigger activators. The Democratic measure passed the Senate on a party-line 23-12 vote Monday morning.

The bill now needs a procedural vote in the House before it moves to Polis for signature into law.

“The rise in 3D-printer technology has introduced a new front in our fight to prevent gun violence in the United States,” Sen. Tom Sullivan, a Centennial Democrat, said in a statement. He’s sponsoring the bill with Sen. Katie Wallace. “It is imperative that we act right now to shore up existing law to prevent the at-home production of ghost guns, saving countless lives before they are threatened.”

The bill passed swiftly Monday, with no discussion. But on Friday, Sullivan and Wallace proposed a late amendment to strip out a part of the bill that would’ve also prohibited people from selling or distributing the “digital instructions” needed to print the guns and components.

“Regulating the distribution of digital instructions of 3D printing of firearms was a key part of this legislation,” Sullivan said during Senate debate Friday. “After months of open discussion about what this legislation set out to do with interested parties … the Senate sponsors were told that without an amendment removing that regulation, the governor would veto the bill.”

In a statement, Polis’ office said that the governor’s staff had raised concerns about the digital instructions early in the legislative process. Polis spokesman Eric Maruyama did not directly respond to the criticism from lawmakers but said the legislation “closes a dangerous loophole.”

“The governor appreciates the sponsors’ and advocates’ hard work on this important issue,” Maruyama wrote, “and is supportive of efforts to ensure our Second Amendment rights are protected, promote responsible gun ownership and keep our communities safe from illegal firearms, including ghost guns, and senseless gun violence.”

HB-1144 is not the first time Polis has demanded amendments that have weakened Democrat-led gun control bills.

Last year, his office opposed the sale of semiautomatic rifles. His opposition prompted scrambling to change the bill, ultimately turning the restriction into a training requirement, under which guns of that type could still be sold to people who completed certain educational courses.

During debate Friday, both Sullivan and Wallace indicated that they planned to resurrect the removed part of the bill in the coming years — after Polis’ term has expired and a new governor occupies his office on the first floor of the Capitol in early 2027.

“Since a positive debate would’ve only ended in a veto by one, we have decided to accept the cleanup and, next year, come back with a new administration in place,” Sullivan said.

Legislators in the House voted 40-25 to pass , the 3D printing bill. At roughly the same time, the state Senate voted 19-16 to advance , which would require firearm barrels to be sold or transferred only by a federally licensed firearm dealer. Each bill will now switch to the opposite chamber and restart the process; each are likely to clear their next several votes and move to Gov. Jared Polis.

Both measures were exclusively backed by Democrats, who hold nearly 2-to-1 majorities in both chambers.

HB-1144 would prohibit the manufacturing of 3D printed firearms and gun components, including large-capacity magazines, rapid-fire devices and unfinished frames or receivers. It also bans the selling or distribution of instruction manuals that could be used to produce the devices. Anyone who violates the law would face a misdemeanor charge on a first offense; subsequent violations would result in a felony charge. The bill does not apply to licensed gun manufacturers or accredited gunsmithing programs.

“The ability to access a 3D printed firearm and commit an act that nine times out of 10 is fatal is unique, and (is) something we can speak to. This bill seeks to do that,” Rep. Andy Boeseneker, a Fort Collins Democrat, said during debate Monday. He’s sponsoring the bill with Rep. Lindsay Gilchrist.

Lawmakers previously banned the possession of so-called ghost guns, which are firearms without serial numbers. Between August 2024 and December 2025, the Colorado Bureau of Investigations seized 89 ghost guns — or “personal manufactured firearms” — spokesman Rob Low said in an email last month.

Republicans argued that the bill was unconstitutional and violated the Second Amendment. Rep. Rebecca Keltie, of Colorado Springs, accused one of the bill’s sponsors of legislating because of his “emotions” related to guns. The bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Sullivan, whose son was killed in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting.

Later Monday, the Senate comfortably passed SB-43 after more Republican opposition. In addition to regulating who can sell gun barrels, the bill also requires that sales are made in person and that records about each sale be kept for five years.

Sullivan, a Centennial Democrat who’s also sponsoring the barrel bill, said the proposal is a further attempt to crack down on so-called ghost guns, or unregistered firearms.

“This is not an attempt to put anyone out of business or register anything so that at a later date someone will come to confiscate those items,” Sullivan said during floor debate on Friday, ahead of Monday’s final vote. “Times are changing … (and) the ghost gun has become a new problem for law enforcement.”

Republicans, who opposed the bill, launched a lengthy debate about the legislation Monday morning, characterizing it as an infringement on Second Amendment rights and law-abiding gun owners.

“Here we have a piece of legislation that masquerades as a public safety measure but in reality strikes at the very heart of our constitutional liberties,” Sen. Lynda Zamora Wilson, a Republican who lives at the Air Force Academy, said.

The votes kicked off a day of gun-related hearings and debates in the Capitol, where gun control measures have become increasingly common as Democratic lawmakers have settled into comfortable majorities over their Republican colleagues. Elsewhere Monday, a House committee was set to debate bills to and to expand take a person’s firearms away. A Republican-backed measure to was also set for its initial hearing.

Well, another new year, and more gun control bills led by state Sen. Tom Sullivan and his Democratic colleagues. Now he wants to make it unlawful to purchase a barrel for your existing firearm, unless it is in person through a licensed gun dealer.

Last year, when was passed, people claimed they were not trying to take our Second Amendment rights away. Well, what in the heck do you call ? It sure isn’t a bill that is going to decrease crime, but rather to build a registry of gun owners in Colorado.

I ask you, Sen. Sullivan, is it your intention to try to shut down lawful gun shops and make it hard to impossible to own a firearm in this state? I personally think that you are using your tragedy in your life to carry out your vendetta on the Second Amendment here in the state of Colorado, and that is very sad.

Dennis Kurtz, Littleton

“1984” parallels arrived during Biden administration

Re: “‘The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect,” Feb. 5 commentary

The commentary by Fintan Steele is a perfect example of how far apart today’s intellectualists are from regular folks. He quotes George Orwell’s “1984” in terms of the “parallels between the current U.S. political leadership” and the growing police state, but does not have the intellectual integrity to say what he is really talking about: Donald J. Trump’s leadership and his growing police state.

Steele completely ignores the attempt to take over the government via the fake Hillary Clinton dossier in an attempt to impeach and dispose of Trump. He talks of Orwell’s “Newspeak” but somehow missed the left’s war on words over the last few years, especially when Joe Biden was in power and used censorship to limit speech that wasn’t in line with what they thought. Biden even attempted to start a Disinformation Governance Board, or what Orwell would call a Department of Right Speech.

What Democratic congressman or senator can survive if they don’t toe the company line? None.

Elon Musk took over Twitter to save free speech from being destroyed by the left. I believe “1984” already happened during the Biden administration, and the Trump administration is only a reaction to that. I also believe we need to watch both political parties so “1984” does not happen, but don’t lecture me about the “1984” parallels to the Trump administration when the Democratic Party had already set up the “1984 scenario” during their time in office, and thus have no moral authority on the subject.

Steve Gehrke, Aurora

Ditch Project 2025 by impeaching Trump

We, the Citizens of the United States, have to clean up the national and global mess created by the thinking of those who created Project 2025, to guide US policy.

The first task has to be to impeach and convict the man they picked to carry out their policies. After we accomplish this national goal, we have to keep going and address two growing global threats to life on Earth, global warming and nuclear war.

Recognizing the simple fact that global problems require global solutions, our second task has to be to let the rest of the world know we are ready to cooperate globally in an effort that ends when we have created a version of human activity that is conducted sustainably without war.

Bob McCormick, Denver

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

would build off Colorado’s 2019 extreme risk protection orders law, which allows family members, law enforcement, health care professionals and educators to petition the courts to require people to surrender their firearms temporarily. A judge must find the person to be a risk to themselves or others.

This bill would expand the list of qualified petitioners to include behavioral health professionals who are co-responders with police or other authorities in emergencies, as well as health care and educational institutions.

The Senate approved the measure on a near-party-line vote, 20-13. Sen. Nick Hinrichsen, of Pueblo, was the only Democrat to vote against the measure. Democrats have nearly a 2-to-1 majority in both chambers of the legislature.

“Extreme risk protection orders save lives. Red flag laws prevent harm,” Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat who supported the bill, said. “These policies, and this bill that we are debating here today, address the public health crisis that is gun violence.”

Republicans warned that the bill would erode Second Amendment rights and due process protections because people could face a red flag petition without having any criminal convictions. Sen. Lynda Zamora Wilson, an Air Force veteran, worried the bill would dissuade gun owners from seeking mental health help because the institution providing it could request that they lose access to their firearms.

If the bill becomes law, it “will inflict unnecessary harm on innocent citizens, waste taxpayer dollars and strain trust in our institutions,” Zamora Wilson, an El Paso County Republican, said.

Sen. Tom Sullivan, a Centennial Democrat and sponsor of the bill, accused opponents of playing “Chicken Little” by constantly warning the sky would fall on gun rights. The original red flag law went into effect six years ago. In that time, officials have gathered ample evidence to show the law hasn’t resulted in widespread confiscation, he said.

In those six years, almost 700 extreme risk protection orders have been requested across the state, according to data collected by the state. Of those, 478 petitions were granted on either a temporary or a long-term basis.

“You don’t have to imagine (what the policy will do). This legislation has been in effect for six years,” Sullivan said. Meanwhile, “people in this state, in my community, are asking us to do more” to prevent gun violence, he added.

The law, which allows judges to issue extreme risk protection orders, now allows family members, law enforcement, health care professionals and educators to petition the courts to require people to surrender their firearms temporarily. The judge must find the person to be a risk to themselves or others.

would expand that list of petitioners to include behavioral health professionals who are co-responders with police or other authorities in emergencies, as well as health care and educational institutions.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Tom Sullivan, a Centennial Democrat, passed on a 3-2 party-line vote — likely setting it up to have one of the first lengthy floor debates in the Senate this year.

Sullivan called the bill “a continuation and move to create the perfection of the bill that we passed in 2019,” referring to the original red flag law. Sen. Katie Wallace, a Longmont Democrat, said the bill “will be something that will help keep individuals safer while also respecting the rights they have.” Sullivan, Wallace and Sen. William Lindstedt, a Broomfield Democrat, voted in support of the measure Tuesday.

Supporters of the bill argued it would further help prevent gun violence by focusing on people who are likely to harm themselves or others. From 2020 to 2023, Colorado has outpaced the national per-capita average in firearm-related deaths, largely driven by suicide rates.

Colorado saw an annual average of 11.4 suicides per 100,000 people in that time, versus 7.4 for the rest of the country, according from .

Extreme risk protection orders are a type of civil restraining order issued by courts if they find that a preponderance of the evidence suggests a person would be at significant risk of hurting themselves or others. Courts can order temporary or long-term prohibitions against firearm access.

Lawmakers and Gov. Jared Polis enacted the first red flag law in 2019. It initially allowed only law enforcement and family or household members of the gun owner to file a petition. State officials expanded who could file the petitions in 2023 to include licensed health care professionals and educators.

“Just the ownership of a gun doesn’t make you a threat to the public,” Sullivan said. “It is the things that you say and do, and those things need to be notated by people in positions of authority.”

Gun-rights advocates assailed the proposal as a further encroachment on the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, after years of new gun-control laws passed in Colorado, and an infringement of due process rights.

“What we’re doing here should alarm every person who understands why this country exists in the first place,” said Teddy Collins, a Colorado Springs gun store owner and vice president of . He warned this proposal would “strip Americans of their constitutional rights without (committing) a crime, without a conviction and without a fair hearing.”

State Sen. Lynda Zamora Wilson, a Republican from the Air Force Academy, said the bill “undermines the Second Amendment” by expanding the ability to confiscate firearms. She and other opponents raised concerns that people could file malicious red flag orders as retribution.

“This bill will make it easier for people with bad intentions to take away our rights while making it harder for people with good intentions to defend themselves or their families,” Zamora Wilson said. She and Sen. Rod Pelton, a Cheyenne Wells Republican, voted against the measure.

Sullivan said the issue of malicious petitions has been nearly non-existent since the law went into effect and that such attempts have been quickly adjudicated. He also noted the law has survived legal challenges to its constitutionality.

Nearly 700 extreme risk protection orders have been requested statewide since Polis signed the original bill,���������ǰ��徱�Բ� collected by the CDPHE. Of those, 478 petitions were granted on either a temporary or long-term basis.

SB-4 still needs to pass the full Colorado Senate before it goes to the House for consideration. Democrats have nearly 2-to-1 majorities in both chambers of the legislature.

The first bill in the package, , was introduced on Wednesday, the legislature’s first day back at work. It would give Coloradans who are injured during immigration enforcement actions the ability to sue federal officers, part of a in states .

“The world of the United States has changed — and not for the good, in terms of these issues,” said Sen. Mike Weissman, an Aurora Democrat sponsoring the bill with Sen. Julie Gonzales of Denver. “Even since spring 2025, the tactics deployed by federal agents are getting more violent, more shocking, more violative of legitimate expectations of people in this country and of the law. By the day, it is increasingly urgent that we, at the very least, provide a remedy for that.”

The other two bills were still being drafted. They will likely be introduced in the state House in the coming weeks, lawmakers said.

One would build upon legislation passed last year that further limited how local officials can share information with federal immigration authorities. The new bill would require that state agencies publicly release data requests from immigration officials, and it seeks to alert people whose data is being sought in those requests.

That follows directly on the heels of Polis’ attempts to comply with a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement subpoena received by state officials in May. A judge ruled that complying with the subpoena — which sought records on the sponsors of unaccompanied immigrant children — would likely violate state law.

Polis, who has contended the subpoena was related to potential child abuse and exploitation, is still trying to find a way to turn over some records. Attorneys also argued in that litigation about whether anyone but the immigrants themselves had legal standing to file lawsuits, an argument complicated by the fact that immigrants are typically unaware that their data may be turned over at all.

“We’re also seeing an uptick of these unlawful detentions, and it����ap important for us that everyone is safe in the state of Colorado,” said Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, a Glenwood Springs Democrat. She’s sponsoring the second bill with Rep. Lorena Garcia. “It feels very urgent and of the times that, as we’re protecting the state against the Trump administration, we stand up for everyone that lives here.”

The bill would also institute tighter regulations on ICE’s only current detention center in the state, in Aurora, and on any others the agency opens.

The third bill underscores that local law enforcement cannot wear masks in most cases, said Rep. Meg Froelich, an Englewood Democrat. But it would not apply to federal agents. This week, the Denver City Council began mulling a potential ordinance that would try to restrict federal agents from wearing face coverings when they carry out arrests and detentions.

Federal officials generally have challenged local and state governments’ attempts to regulate federal immigration and law enforcement activities.

The bills are all coming in response to aspects of the immigration crackdown that has unfolded since Trump returned to office. Thousands of immigrants without proper legal status have been arrested in Colorado over the past year, most of whom had no prior criminal convictions.

Renee Good, a Coloradan living in Minnesota, was shot and killed by an ICE agent earlier this month. Attorneys and advocates have repeatedly criticized the conditions in ICE’s detention center in Aurora and have protested against plans to open more facilities in parts of rural Colorado.

In the late spring, a University of Utah college student was arrested after a Mesa County sheriff’s deputy tipped off ICE officers to her location and immigration status. The deputy appeared to have violated state law limiting that type of contact, and he resigned amid a lawsuit by the state attorney general’s office.

Garcia and Velasco said their bill would place liability on agencies, rather than individual state employees. That way, they said, an officer couldn’t just resign and end the case. Their bill would also require more transparency around task forces; the Mesa County deputy shared information with ICE in a task force group chat.

Other opening day legislation

Often, the first bills introduced in a legislative session represent the Democratic majority’s priorities and messaging. In addition to Weissman and Gonzales’ immigration bill, Democratic leadership unveiled dozens of bills Wednesday.

As expected, the Worker Protection Act — which would make it easier for organized workers to fully negotiate their union contracts without having to clear a second vote — was introduced again after Polis vetoed it last year. This year, it comes in the form of .

Leadership also introduced , which would require state courts to suppress records of people who’ve changed their names — essentially keeping them private. The bill would also direct family court judges to weigh a parent’s acceptance of aspects of a child’s identity — such as their gender identity — when determining parental time. That’s a similar provision to one that was hotly debated in a transgender rights bill that was passed last year after the provision was stripped out.

is also a redux: It would make it easier for nonprofits, transit authorities, school districts and colleges to build housing on their land. Last year’s version, which withered on the Senate’s calendar, also included religious organizations.

Sen. Tom Sullivan introduced a who can petition a court to temporarily remove a person’s firearms under the red flag law. A bipartisan group of lawmakers unveiled a bill that would give municipal utilities and electric cooperatives more time to cut their carbon emissions.

Another bill, , would require utilities to provide a minimal level of electricity to lower-income Coloradans at marginal cost.

would require that certain websites — like social media platforms — provide faster responses and a dedicated hotline for Colorado law enforcement officers serving search warrants. Lawmakers have made repeated attempts to regulate social media companies and to expedite search warrant responses.

The issue gained more urgency in September, after law enforcement said that they had been trying to identify the person behind the social media accounts used by the Evergreen High School shooter before the shooting unfolded.

Finally, would require additional price transparency, particularly on goods ordered via online services. It would prohibit certain settings with “captive consumers” — including hospitals, event venues, airports and correctional facilities — from price gouging. Those places would be blocked from charging more for an “ancillary good or service,” like food, than the average price for that same good or service elsewhere in the county.

Sure, he thought, Colorado had enacted a 15-round limit on firearm magazines earlier that decade, in response to the 2012 Aurora movie theater massacre. But the state otherwise was known at the time for its swing-state purple politics and gun laws that were not otherwise far out of step with the rest of the Mountain West.

As he settled into his new home, however — and before he could open his store — a raft of soon-to-be lawmakers with more ambitious gun-regulation agendas were launching campaigns across the state. The Democrats would take full control of state government in the 2018 blue wave election, and their legislative majorities would go on to pass a slate of laws over the next seven years that established sweeping new standards for gun sales and ownership.

“At that time, we still had the 15-round magazine capacity limit, but we did not have three-day waits — we did not have all this other bureaucratic stuff,” Collins said. “We did not have restrictions on licenses like we see now. We didn’t have SB-3. We didn’t have an excise tax.

“Over the years, just slowly, slowly, Colorado has gone the way — and I fear we’re going the way — of California.”

The sweep of new laws started relatively slowly, with 2019’s extreme risk protection order law. But the pace of new restrictions has picked up unmistakably since then, with lawmakers putting stricter and broader rules on nearly all facets of firearms. Those efforts culminated this spring with the passage of Senate Bill 3 — a law that, when it goes into effect in August 2026, will restrict the sale of many semiautomatic firearms that have detachable magazines unless the buyer has passed a safety course.

Since 2021 alone, Democrats have passed two dozen new gun laws that have affected, among other things, who can own them, sell them and buy them; how gun owners can stow them; how the state taxes and tracks firearms; which guns it allows; who can carry them and where; and who can invoke the state’s red-flag law, as part of an expansion of the 2019 extreme risk protection measure that has allowed authorities to take guns away from their owners temporarily.

Where detractors of all the Democrats’ legislation see an ever-growing list of demands on gun ownership that is eroding their fundamental freedoms, supporters see requirements aimed at fostering responsible gun ownership and rules that put a premium on gun safety.

They have been motivated to tighten gun laws, they say, by the too-common mass shootings and rising routine gun violence that included 943 firearm deaths in Colorado, largely from suicides and homicides, in 2023.

“I’m so proud of where we have come in the legislature when it comes to being true to our convictions, our commitments — to really making an impact and changing the way we look at gun safety and talking about that issue,” said House Majority Leader Monica Duran, a Wheat Ridge Democrat and sponsor of nearly a third of the new gun laws. “We’ve come a long way.”

A timeline of Colorado gun laws since the Aurora movie theater shooting

But Collins, the gun store owner, says he feels like the rug was pulled out from under him after he opened Spartan Defense in 2021. The opening came after he'd weathered pandemic delays -- and right as some of the most notable legislation was being passed.

With hindsight, he's not sure he would have invested in the Colorado Springs store.

"When I got here, business was great," Collins said. "And now, they're just trying to put up all these barriers and roadblocks and red tape."

'Some of the strictest' laws

The Colorado laws passed over the last six years have had a significant real-world effect.

Customers who buy a gun must now wait to pick it up. They must pass , both from the state and the federal government. They must be at least 21 years old to buy any type of or . They cannot have been convicted of a slew of crimes, including any type of assault, a bias-motivated crime, cruelty to animals or harassment.

They must pay a , which totals $65 on a $1,000 purchase, to generate money for services for crime victims and mental health as well as school safety.

Once a gun is purchased, the owner must enough that children and people who are ineligible to possess firearms can’t access it. If they keep the gun in a car, they must . Failing to do either can result in a misdemeanor charge.

The owner can’t at a polling place or inside government buildings and educational facilities, such as schools and day care centers. If the owner wants to , they must pay for and pass an eight-hour course that includes live-fire exercises and a written exam. A refresher course, required every five years for people who already have permits, is two hours and also includes an exam and a live-fire exercise.

And if the person is deemed a threat to themselves or others, their guns can be confiscated.

“The Colorado state legislature has been very busy on the gun front over the past half-dozen years or so,” said Kristin Goss, a Duke University public policy professor who studies gun politics. “Colorado is now pretty comparable to some of the strictest gun law states in the country."

Duran rejected the suggestion that any of those laws infringe on individual rights. As a concealed-carry permit holder herself, she said it����ap her “duty” as a lawmaker and a gun owner to show what responsible ownership looks like.

“I don’t ever feel like anything that I have supported or run is an infringement on my rights as a gun owner,” Duran said. “I feel like it����ap part of my responsibility as a gun owner to make sure that I pass legislation and support things that make our community safer.”

Gov. Jared Polis is "proud" of the gun laws and has called the state a "model for common-sense reform," his spokesperson, Shelby Wieman, said.

In the first six months of this year alone, more than 2,000 firearm transactions were denied through background checks, for reasons that include past assault convictions, restraining orders, traffic offenses and more, according to the .

"The laws Gov. Polis has signed promote responsible gun ownership, respect Second Amendment rights, give more tools to law enforcement, help to get illegal firearms off our streets, and have undoubtedly made our state more safe," Wieman wrote in a statement to The Denver Post. "These measures, along with many others, have helped reduce crime rates in our communities and we look forward to ensuring those trends continue."

Polis was elected governor as part of the 2018 wave. But he's also shown more restraint than some Democrats when it comes to firearm laws. He balked at an initial version of SB-3 this year that would have outright banned the sale of semiautomatic weapons that have detachable magazines. His office negotiated the allowance for prospective buyers to take training courses.

'More and more restrictive'

The view from reform advocates that the laws enforce responsible gun ownership clashes against that of gun-rights advocates, who see the flurry of legislation as a fast-and-furious construction of new barriers to legal gun ownership.

Most gun owners want to comply with the law, said Ray Elliott, the president of the Colorado State Shooting Association. Gun locks, training, waiting periods and the new excise tax each add barriers -- whether it����ap cost or time -- to gun ownership.

“All those rules and laws and everything going on make (gun ownership) more and more onerous, more and more restrictive,” Elliott said. “And as you put up barriers like that, (gun control advocates) know exactly what they’re doing. Less and less people are going to jump through the hoops.”

His view is shared by Collins, the gun store owner, who's also the vice president of the Colorado Federal Firearms Licensee Association. On a recent weekday afternoon, a clerk at his store was walking a potential customer through rules for transferring firearms and how to comply with the law. Collins said training is constant to keep clerks abreast of changes in law and new guidance as the store tries to stay on the right side of new regulations.

The new excise tax, in particular, has been a problem, Collins said. He called the law vague in defining which gun parts and accessories the tax applies to, putting him at risk of either overcharging customers or undercollecting the tax. The tax is also driving some customers out of state for certain items because they find them cheaper to buy online and pay a fee needed to transfer possession of the gun.

State Sen. Byron Pelton, a Sterling Republican, said he sees that problem acutely.

His sprawling northeastern Colorado district touches three other states: Nebraska, Kansas and Wyoming. All have distinctly more lenient firearm laws than Colorado. Consituents will cross the border for ammunition, in particular, to avoid the added cost of the excise tax.

"The state of Colorado is forcing more people to go out of state to buy guns, because the laws are so draconian,” Pelton said. “It's making it harder and harder and more expensive for folks in rural Colorado to buy firearms to protect themselves and their land and their livestock."

Elliott didn’t doubt that many who support the recent gun laws were sincere in trying to make people safer. But he also sees an overall movement toward disarmament. He called it “a death by a thousand cuts.”

His group sent to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi earlier this year highlighting the laws they find most detestable. The letter was signed by elected Republican officials across the state.

Collins' business does offer firearm training -- he said he's trained more than 15,000 students -- but he argues it should be optional. Making it a requirement infringes on gun owners' rights under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, he said.

Collins estimates that SB-3, when it goes into effect, will impact nearly 80% of his inventory, including AR-15-type rifles -- one of the most in the country. The weapon is also commonly associated with some of the worst mass shootings in the country, including in Colorado, though handguns are more.

"I do see people that will want to exercise their rights and are going to stay here in Colorado," Collins said. "I do see people that are just not going to put up with it."

As the new limit on semiautomatic sales nears a year from now, barring any successful lawsuits to prevent it, “I don’t expect anything to be left on my shelves,” Collins said. He expects a surge in sales similar to ones he recalls during the COVID-19 pandemic, before he opened his brick-and-mortar store, and after President Barack Obama was elected, which prompted worries by some people about national restrictions on guns and ammo.

Collins is cautious about how he'll restock as the new law goes into effect. He doesn’t want to get left with inventory he can’t sell.

But advocates and the gun industry have long predicted doom because of new gun laws, said Sen. Tom Sullivan, a Centennial Democrat and a sponsor of many of Colorado’s new gun laws, and “none of that is true.” Sullivan's son, Alex, was one of a dozen people murdered in the Aurora theater shooting. Seventy others were injured.

Alex's murder spurred Sullivan to advocate for stricter gun laws in Colorado and nationally, and led to him running for office.

SB-3 does prohibit the sale of many semiautomatic weapons -- unless the purchaser has completed a firearm education course. The bill was heavily amended while it made its way through the legislature and Sullivan now describes it as a “permit-to-purchase” law.

People who follow the law haven’t lost access to anything in recent years -- and won’t under this law, Sullivan said. But laws need to change as society changes, he said. Sullivan likened the new gun laws to the shift toward widespread adoption of seatbelts in cars a few generations ago. It didn’t happen overnight, but the life-saving devices are now the norm.

"OK, you've got to wait a few days to get (a gun). Or you have to fill out another form. Whatever it is, you still get what you want,” Sullivan said.

But do the laws work?

One of the 2021 gun laws championed by Sullivan created to, among other things, in Colorado. And in raw and per-capita numbers, they’ve risen overall since 2013.

In 2014, the first full year of the post-Aurora laws, the state reported 86 gun homicides, or 1.9 per 100,000 people; in 2023, the most recent year with available data, 237 people were killed with guns in homicides, or about 5 per 100,000 residents. 

In that same time frame, the number of gun suicides grew from 527 a year, or 9.9 per 100,000 people, to 673, or 11.5 per 100,000 people.

Gun-rights advocates are quick to point to such numbers, as well as the overall pandemic-era spike in violent crime, as evidence that the laws are, at best, misguided. At worst, they see the crime and violence being used as a cover to disarm law-abiding citizens.

“I don't think it's true that every single law that was passed was necessarily pointless and useless. Many are, but not all," said David B. Kopel, the research director of , a libertarian-conservative think tank in Denver. He's also a senior fellow at in the University of Wyoming's College of Law.

He said some laws have a reasonable premise, even if the data itself or their implementation leaves an open question about their efficacy and overall consequences. 

The gun issue is also so fraught and caught up in the culture wars that Kopel sees "a tremendous amount of motivated reasoning, on both sides," as those arguing seek to confirm preexisting beliefs.

Gauging the effectiveness of laws means disentangling them from broader societal changes and weighing them against the costs they impose on other people. The waiting period law, for example, may stop some suicides, but it also "makes society more dangerous," he argues, because people can't defend themselves.

Goss, the Duke University professor, likewise points out the lack of good, specific evidence on the effects of new laws on gun violence. Regional differences in history, culture and society can lead to the same laws having different effects.

But the field of study is starting to change. The Rand Corporation recently published on gun violence that, while not drawing firm conclusions, highlighted the strength of evidence for certain laws. Broadly, the review shows that stricter laws may decrease gun violence -- but it also finds hard evidence of that may be slim. Its review of , for example, found “moderate” evidence that the laws had helped minimize suicide and violent crime.

“There’s pretty suggestive evidence that at the aggregate level, if you have a good set of laws and they’re enforced, there will be a reduction in people misusing firearms,” Goss said. “But we need much better research on that.”

Gun-rights advocates argue that root causes, not guns, should be the focus. If legislators want to address suicide, they should push for programs to support mental health; if it's crime, go after criminals. 

"Criminals, they're just going to have a little bit further to drive in order to get a firearm that they want to use in a bad way," Collins said. He added that high-end precision weapons from stores like his aren't usually the weapons used in violence. It's cheap, stolen firearms. 

He also cited the June 1 attack on demonstrators in Boulder as evidence that people intent on harming others will find a way. Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the man accused of carrying out the attack with homemade firebombs, wounded more than a dozen people, including a woman who died later. He is an immigrant who was denied a gun purchase earlier in the year because he lacked proper legal status.

Duran and Sullivan both pointed out that the pandemic upended society both in terms of crime statistics and gun sales. Wieman, the governor's spokesperson, noted that violent crime and property crime both dropped by more than 13% between 2022 and 2024.

Duran says those numbers and other data are worth reexamining to determine what more needs to be done regarding gun safety and new laws.

She also remains confident that the laws have had a positive effect. In her view, even one life saved because of the laws still matters.

"There isn't a magic wand out there," Duran said. "There just isn't. What it takes is combining neighborhoods and community with the advocates and the experts -- all of us together to say, 'What does the data show us and what do we need to do next to make a difference?' "

Colorado's undeniable shift

Twelve years ago, in the wake of the Aurora shooting, it wasn’t clear if Colorado would continue to stiffen its gun laws or not.

Rhonda Fields, who sponsored the in 2013 and is now an Arapahoe County commissioner, said the gun laws passed that year “created shockwaves across the state.” The package also included a law requiring universal background checks and a fee to cover those checks.

Lawmakers faced recalls and threats, including by one man who was arrested for sending Fields harassing messages. Democrats lost control of the state Senate and at least one company, firearm magazine manufacturer Magpul, left the state in protest.

Democrats spent the next several years playing defense, said Sullivan, who was not a legislator then. The state had followed a similar pattern after the 1999 Columbine High School massacre: An unbearable tragedy led to a burst of energy around firearm laws, and then quiet.

The impasse on legislation started to break in 2018, along with Colorado’s purple reputation. Duran, like Sullivan, was part of a wave of incoming Democrats who won office that year to take control of state government.

She recalled walking into the Capitol intent on creating new requirements for concealed-carry laws -- and being told no by Democratic leadership. They already had plans for a new gun bill in the 2019 session, and they wouldn’t wager majority control more than that, Duran said.

That bill was the now-enacted red-flag law. Despite protests over it, Democrats would go on to keep their majorities in the 2020 election. And in the 2022 election. And in 2024.

Backers of stricter gun laws took it as a sign that the people wanted reform.

“You can’t talk about the national gun safety movement without talking about Colorado,” Everytown for Gun Safety President John Feinblatt said. “A decade ago, no one saw progress like this coming from a state known for hunting and sport shooting."

His group ranks states based on how it rates the relative strength of their gun laws.

"Colorado has in the country," Feinblatt said, "and its lawmakers aren’t just running on gun safety -- they’re winning.”

But everyday gun owners end up bearing the brunt of the new laws, said Elliott, from the shooting association.

"Responsible gun owners are not the problem," Elliott said. "(The state is) literally passing laws on people that are very, very law-abiding citizens."

Among current and former lawmakers, Fields, whose son was murdered in a shooting in 2005, said it����ap “amazing” how far the state has come; she left the legislature after she was term-limited from running again in 2024. Sullivan, likewise, said he “can’t overemphasize the thankfulness” he and others in the community of people affected by gun violence feel for the new laws Colorado has passed.

But he also called for another shift in thinking. He pointed out that education, climate change, the budget and other key state priorities all have periodic check-ins to see how those laws are working. Why not gun laws?

He’s asked legislative staff to seek more information on firearm thefts to see if policy can be tailored to the problem. Rafts of thefts from cars, homes or stores could all need different solutions. He also questioned why laws against attempts to make unlawful purchases of firearms weren’t used against the alleged Boulder firebomber.

Large Democratic majorities make it relatively easy to pass splashy gun legislation and for his colleagues to collect bill signing pens, Sullivan said, but that doesn’t replace the day-to-day policy work.

He also acknowledged that his circumstances are different from others' in the legislature.

"Everyone else has the opportunity to move on from what happened on July 20,” Sullivan said, referring to the date of the Aurora theater massacre. “They get to remember the tragedy and put it back on a shelf, and then wait another year to remember it again. For me, it����ap there every single day. It changes you. It gives you a different perspective on things."

— 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.”

Anne Marie Hochhalter, a 17-year-old senior at Columbine when she was shot in the spine by two deranged classmates, died this week at 43 possibly from complications with the injuriesshe sustained that tragic day. She outlived 12 of her schoolmates and a teacher who died April 20, 1999. Austin Eubanks, who was shot twice, died at 37 following a long battle with an opioid addiction that was a result of the shooting. Both are survived by Richard Castaldo, Patrick Ireland and Sean Graves who also were severely wounded and have continued to honor the legacy of those who died at Columbine.

After Columbine, there was a mass movement for change. Hope was palpable that this would never happen again. Police reviewed mistakes they made in delaying their entry into the building. Laws were changed so that the shooters would not have been able to get their guns in Colorado legally. A hotline was established for students, parents and teachers to report threats, which has prevented some plotted attacks. And Coloradans united around the survivors and their families.

Columbine High School shooting survivor dies decades after tragedy. Her tenacious spirit is remembered.

But then the mass shootings continued – at schools, at concerts, at offices, and at parades. The pace began to pick up sometime in the last decade. Some shootings were orchestrated by foreign entities as terrorist attacks, but most were home-grown Americans slaughtering their friends, neighbors, and sometimes complete strangers with a bloodthirst that is unimaginable to anyone who hasn’t seen armed combat in war.

Also, this week, street signs on C-470 were finally updated to reflect the change of Lucent Boulevard to honor Kendrick Castillo. Kendrick was killed during the 2019 Highlands Ranch school shooting. He threw himself on one of the gunmen, saving the lives of his classmates, but suffering a fatal wound in the process. Now Kendrick Castillo Way reminds us all of a teenager who shouldn't have had to be a hero in his high school classroom but sacrificed himself to save others.

His parents visited his grave .

Sadly, these tragedies have divided the nation, and little hope remains that there will be an end to the violence.

Some survivors have dedicated their lives to preventing more ripples from forming, only to be accused of being un-American because of the politics and rights that envelop guns. In Colorado, Sen. Tom Sullivan’s son was killed in the Aurora Theater shooting. He sponsored a bill that passed the Colorado Senate that will make it harder for people to buy semi-automatic weapons with detachable magazines, like the one used to kill Sullivan’s son, Alex Sullivan, and 11 others at a midnight screening of Dark Knight Rises in 2012.

Perhaps instead of derision, Sullivan should be met with compassion as he seeks to protect others from gun violence.

Families who have lost their children at school shootings now support one another through an informal network, but part of the toll taken by these mass shootings has been the suicides that follow -- Anne Marie Hochhalter’s mother shot herself just as the family was moving into a new house that would be accessible for Anne Marie, Jeremy Richman killed himself after his son was killed at Newtown Elementary School, and two teen survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting killed themselves in 2019.

The trauma and loss was insurmountable for some.

But somehow Anne Marie Hochhalter endured. She thrived and lived her life well. She loved her animals, her friends and the ocean, which she only got to visit once.

“She was fiercely independent,” Sue Townsend told The Denver Post. “She was a fighter. She’d get knocked down -- she struggled a lot with health issues that stemmed from the shooting — but I’d watch her pull herself back up. She was her best advocate and an advocate for others who weren’t as strong in the disability community.”

Townsend's stepdaughter Lauren Townsend was killed at Columbine and said she "acquired" Anne Marie as a daughter in the aftermath of the shooting and Anne Marie's mother's suicide.

Perhaps there is still hope that Americans can unite and stop new ripples of trauma and loss from consuming so much that is good in this world.

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