Second Amendment Advocates Say Bungled Rollout of Colorado Gun Law Acts as De Facto Ban

A group of Second Amendment advocates is seeking a preliminary injunction to halt Colorado’s new permit-to-purchase requirements for certain semiautomatic firearms while a constitutional challenge proceeds.The Colorado State Shooting Association says a law that went into effect on August 1 requires Coloradans seeking to purchase covered firearms — a long list of pistols and rifles that includes popular AR-15s — to navigate a burdensome, confusing multi-step process involving background checks, government approvals, mandatory training, testing, and fees. The plaintiffs say the registration scheme cannot be reconciled with the Supreme Court’s requirement that the government justify that any firearm restrictions are consistent with America’s historical tradition of regulation.The association and five of its members filed a federal suit shortly after the law was passed. The National Rifle Association and the Mountain States Legal Foundation have joined the suit. The plaintiffs filed a motion Wednesday in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado seeking the injunction, citing a bungled rollout of the system.The motion argues that the law violates the Second Amendment by imposing “an abusive, ahistorical permitting system that effectively prevents law-abiding Coloradans from exercising their constitutional right to acquire common firearms.”The law — passed in 2025 and signed into law by Governor Jared Polis — requires applicants to obtain a background check from a third-party vendor, submit to their county sheriff an application and a government-issued photo ID to their county sheriff, along with the results of their background check. They also have to pay a firearms-safety-course eligibility fee.After submitting all of the required information, the applicant must then wait an unspecified amount of time for the sheriff to review the application. The motion says the process grants any sheriff discretion to deny the application based on a predictive judgment about future behavior.If approved, the applicant must then complete 12 hours of in-person instruction over multiple days and pass a written examination with a score of at least 90 percent. Only then may the applicant purchase the firearm, after which the applicant would still undergo another background check and wait three days before taking possession of the weapon.The gun rights groups say the implementation of the law has been plagued by confusion, delays, and outright barriers to obtain firearms. Despite having 16 months to set up systems, counties have adopted inconsistent procedures, and some counties are not issuing the eligibility cards at all, effectively barring residents from acquiring covered firearms. The plaintiffs call the law a de facto ban.“These requirements would be unconstitutional even if Colorado had created a functioning system. It hasn’t,” The Colorado State Shooting Association’s executive director, Huey Laugesen, said in an X post. “In many counties, the process isn’t even up and running yet. Some Coloradans are being sent back and forth between their sheriff and Colorado Parks and Wildlife (responsible for running the program) just trying to find out where they can obtain the required background check,” Mr. Laugesen continued.A request for comment from Governor Jared Polis’s office was not immediately returned.

Second Amendment Advocates Say Bungled Rollout of Colorado Gun Law Acts as De Facto Ban

Second Amendment Advocates Say Bungled Rollout of Colorado Gun Law Acts as De Facto Ban

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