This story was produced by the Colorado Capitol News Alliance.
Colorado gun stores say they may be forced to shutter should Democrats in the legislature this year pass a ban on the manufacture, sale and purchase of semiautomatic firearms with detachable ammunition magazines.
Senate Bill 3 would make a large portion of the merchandise at Colorado gun stores illegal to sell overnight, hitting their bottom lines but also presenting safety and liability issues. It has its first committee hearing Tuesday at the Capitol.
The measure is aimed at making it harder for people to violate the state’s 15-round magazine limit, and in turn limit the violence someone can inflict during a mass shooting. It targets semiautomatic rifles and shotguns that are capable of accepting detachable ammunition magazines, like AR- and AK-style firearms, as well as some semiautomatic pistols that also can use detachable magazines.
The measure would not ban the possession of any firearms or require changes to guns Coloradans already own.
If the bill passes, the affected firearms could be manufactured, sold or purchased in Colorado only if they have a permanently fixed magazine — either by welding, epoxy or soldering — that could not accept more than 15 rounds of ammunition.
“For our long-gun inventory, 60 to 75 percent of the guns we sell would be affected by this ban,” said Bryan Clark, who owns the Bristlecone Shooting, Training and Retail Center in Lakewood.
Clark said the bill would have a substantial effect on his earnings.
“We sell ARs at a good clip, and AR-style rifles,” he said, surrounded by a display of dozens of firearms.
Other gun stores interviewed by the Colorado Capitol News Alliance shared the same sentiment. One owner said he was already planning to move out of state. Others said the bill would put them out of business.
“I’m a very small shop,” said Travis Fletcher, owner of the Gun Depot in Montrose. “I have one full-time employee and a part-time employee. I would probably have to reduce it to me and run the shop by myself because we would not be able to sell enough to maintain business.”
Replacing the lost revenue may be difficult, the gun store owners said.
Large gun manufacturers do not make semiautomatic weapons with fixed magazines, said Nephi Cole, director of government relations-state affairs for the National Sports Shooting Foundation, an industry trade group representing gun sellers and manufacturers.
Conversion kits that make such weapons legal in other states wouldn’t make them compliant under Senate Bill 3. That’s because of a clause in the measure that says a detachable magazine that can be removed “without rendering the firearm incapable of accepting any magazine” wouldn’t comply with the legislation.
The aim of the clause is to prevent a magazine from ever being removed from the gun.
In California, for example, the state’s ban on guns defined as assault weapons simply outlaws semiautomatic rifles that can accept a detachable magazine. However, there is no requirement that the fixed magazine not be removable without rendering the firearm incapable of ever accepting another magazine.
The kits that make the guns compliant with California law can be removed with a power tool, allowing a weapon to accept detachable magazines again.
A limited number of smaller gun manufacturers make semiautomatic firearms with fixed magazines that would appear to be compliant with Senate Bill 3. Dark Storm Industries, which says it manufactures about 5,000 guns a year, is one of them.
Cole, who called Senate Bill 3 “the most expansive proposed gun ban that's ever been proposed in the United States of America,” said one of the reasons manufacturers don’t make guns with fixed magazines is that they are considered unsafe. If someone cannot remove a magazine from a weapon, it’s difficult to check if it’s still loaded.
Thoroughly cleaning a weapon with a magazine, meanwhile, would be much more difficult under Senate Bill 3, firearm experts say.
“What if you're a manufacturer and I'm now going to tell you to build a gun that you consider to be unsafe?” he said. “Are you going to build that gun?”
Cole isn’t sure Colorado is even a big enough market to prompt manufacturers to start building weapons that are compliant with Senate Bill 3, should it become law. No other state has a law quite like Senate Bill 3 on the books.
'They will figure this out'
There’s not a public tally of how many guns are sold annually in Colorado. But the Colorado Bureau of Investigation has approved between 300,000 and 500,000 background checks for firearms sales in the state each year since 2012. People can buy more than one firearm at a time.
The bill’s main sponsor, state Sen. Tom Sullivan, D-Centennial, dismissed claims that the policy could put gun stores out of business.
“I am not the least bit concerned about what it is they are going to do,” Sullivan said. “They're very resourceful. They will figure it out. They have figured it out over the 240 years of our republic, they will figure this out.”
For Sullivan, Senate Bill 3 is simply about enforcing a law that has been on the books for over a decade. The 2013 legislation made it illegal in Colorado to sell, transfer or possess a magazine that holds more than 15 rounds.
Reporters have documented how magazines with higher capacities can still be found for sale in Colorado. Everytown For Gun Safety, which advocates for tighter firearm restrictions, calls the ban “incredibly weak.”
Sullivan referenced the use of magazines with a capacity greater than 15 rounds in two of Colorado’s most recent mass shootings, the 2021 massacre at a Boulder King Soopers and the 2022 attack on LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs.
“Each of those shooters had the ability to buy themselves brand new high-capacity magazines just down the street from where they lived,” said Sullivan, who is working with Everytown For Gun Safety on the bill.
Sullivan has focused much of his six years in the legislature on efforts to curb gun violence. His son, Alex, was murdered in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, in which the shooter used a 100-round drum magazine attached to an AR-15.
Sullivan said without a high-capacity magazine, the shooter would have had to stop to reload, possibly giving Alex a chance to take cover. (The rifle jammed after the gunman fired dozens of rounds.)
“If Alex had had two seconds, maybe he could have gotten behind the seat, maybe something else could have happened in front of him,” Sullivan said. “Maybe he'd still be here today.”
Senate President James Coleman, a Denver Democrat, said the impact of Senate Bill 3 on Colorado gun sellers isn’t top of mind.
“I look forward to the bill being in committee to hear other perspectives about how this can impact business and how it can impact owners,” Coleman said, “but the primary focus for us is making sure that we are committed to the safety of the public and people in Colorado.”
Violators of Senate Bill 3 would be subject to a Class 2 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 120 days in jail and a fine of up to $750. A second or subsequent violation would be a Class 6 felony, punishable by up to 18 months in prison and a fine up to $100,000.
A gun dealer who violates the law could have their license revoked. Violating the law would also prompt the state to bar a person from purchasing a firearm for five years, unless they were convicted of the felony offense, in which case they would be permanently prohibited from possessing a gun.
Clark, the owner of Bristlecone Shooting, believes his gunsmiths could potentially epoxy magazines onto the semiautomatic rifles and shotguns that he already has for sale in his shop.
Colorado gunsmiths, including those at Clark’s shop, often modify magazines that can carry more than 15 rounds to make them compatible with state law.
“It's not something that I'm super comfortable doing,” he said of epoxying magazines onto guns, citing liability concerns around compliance. “The Colorado legislature has definitely been making it much more difficult for dealers like ourselves, who are dealing in a legal product, and they keep chipping away at our rights and our ability to make a living.”
This story was produced by the Capitol News Alliance, a collaboration between KUNC News, Colorado Public Radio, Rocky Mountain PBS, and The Colorado Sun, and shared with Rocky Mountain Community Radio and other news organizations across the state. Funding for the Alliance is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
