CO Requiring Background Check, Safety Course For Semiauto Guns

People in Colorado will soon have to pass a background check and complete a state-sanctioned safety course to buy most semiautomatic guns with detachable magazines under a bill signed by Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday. Colorado, which has seen some of the country’s worst mass shootings — including the 2022 killings at the LGBTQ+ nightspot Club Q in Colorado Springs and the 1999 Columbine High School massacre — joins nearly a dozen other states in requiring some level of safety training or an exam to purchase a firearm. One of the most restrictive gun control measures to be passed in the state as part of a Democratic campaign to curtail gun violence, the law takes full effect in August 2026.

“We can’t afford not to do all we can to change the continuing impact of gun violence,” said bill sponsor and state Sen. Tom Sullivan, whose son, Alex, was killed in a 2013 shooting at a theater in Aurora. Republicans and other opponents contend that the measure violates the Second Amendment, and at last one organization, Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, may file a legal challenge.The several layers of hurdles that the law requires to purchase these guns, and the accompanying costs and potential backlogs, make “it a more or less administrative ban,” said the group's Ian Escalante. Previous attempts at securing an all-out ban on certain semiautomatic guns, as has been done inDemocratic states including New York and California, floundered in more purple Colorado where many including the governor have something of a libertarian streak.