Colorado Governor Signs Sweeping Gun Control Bill Limiting Sale of Semiautomatic Weapons
Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed a new gun control law on Thursday that significantly expands firearm regulations in the state.
The law bans the purchase, sale, and manufacture of firearms with detachable magazines unless the buyer obtains a permit from a local sheriff’s department and completes a firearms training course. The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Department will be tasked with maintaining a database of individuals who pass the required training, which critics have called a de facto government registry of gun owners. The law also prohibits rapid-fire conversion devices such as bump stocks.
The restrictions will apply to new purchases starting August 2026.
“I really think this bill will make Colorado communities safer and prevent both accidents as well as reduce gun violence, and ultimately that means saving lives while protecting our Second Amendment rights,” Polis said.
State Senator Tom Sullivan, the bill’s sponsor, lost his son in the 2012 mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora. “We can’t afford not to do all we can to change the continuing impact of gun violence.”
Polis faced pressure from gun rights advocates to veto the bill, but after signing it, the Colorado State Shooting Association announced plans to file a lawsuit to block its implementation. The group argues that the measure violates the Second Amendment by requiring permits and mandatory training for firearm purchases.
“Behind closed doors, Governor Polis cowardly signed into law the most anti-gun, anti-freedom bill in Colorado’s history,” said John Commerford, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action in a statement. “Instead of respecting the individual liberties of gun owners and hunters in his state, he bent the knee to the radical gun control element of his party. In Jared’s Colorado, you need a ‘Polis Permission Slip’ to exercise your constitutional rights. If this proposal was popular with his citizens, it would not need to be enacted in secret.”
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The bill signing comes after the Department of Justice on Tuesday announced the creation of a Second Amendment Task Force to advance the Trump administration’s desired gun legislation.
“The Task Force is principally charged with developing and executing strategies to use litigation and policy to advance, protect, and promote compliance with the Second Amendment,” Bondi wrote in a memo regarding the task force.
