Semiautomatic firearm ban passes Colorado's House, heads to Senate
Semiautomatic firearm ban passes Colorado's House, heads to Senate
Colorado’s Democratic-controlled House has passed a bill that would ban the sale and transfer of semiautomatic firearms.
Colorado’s Democratic-controlled House on Sunday passed a bill that would ban the sale and transfer of semiautomatic firearms, a major step for the legislation after roughly the same bill was swiftly killed by Democrats last year.
The bill, which passed on a 35-27 vote, is now on its way to the Democratic-led state Senate. If it passes there, it could bring Colorado in line with 10 other states — including California, New York and Illinois — that have prohibitions on semiautomatic guns.
But even in a state plagued by some of the nation’s worst mass shootings, such legislation faces headwinds.
Colorado’s political history is purple, shifting blue only recently. The bill’s chances of success in the state Senate are lower than they were in the House, where Democrats have a 46-19 majority and a bigger far-left flank. Gov. Jared Polis, also a Democrat, has indicated his wariness over such a ban.
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This still allows bolt action for hunting, revolvers and shotguns for defense. That should be plenty. If you're spraying a dozen+ rounds in your own home for defense you're more of a danger than an intruder at that point.
Democrats last year passed and Polis signed into law four less-expansive gun control bills. Those included raising the age for buying any gun from 18 to 21; establishing a three-day waiting period between the purchase and receipt of a gun; strengthening the state’s red flag law; and rolling back some legal protections for the firearms industry, exposing it to lawsuits from the victims of gun violence.
Common-sense gun regulation.
Republicans decried the legislation as an onerous encroachment on the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. They argued that mental illness and people who do not value life — not guns — are the issues that should be addressed. People with ill intent can use other weapons, such as knives, to harm others, they argued.
Lol. And yet healthcare is something Republicans fight against constantly. And "people who do not value life" is great from the forced-birth and no social safety nets crowd.
Democrats responded that semiautomatic weapons can cause much more damage in a short period of time.
Exactly. If you're incredibly viscous and lucky you can get a lot of people, but rarely double digits with a hand-held blade. With a semi-automatic rifle you can get dozens with someone untrained. And we've seen it happen. Multiple times.
.
I fundamentally don’t understand the fixation on pistol grips and thumb holes and threaded barrels. At least they left that last one off for shotguns.
Not really what this post is about, but can we get rid of the "common sense gun laws" mantra already? It's implying that anyone who disagrees with it, for ANY reason, doesn't have common sense. It's not good for having a meaningful discussion on how we can work together to deal with this problem.
Personally, I don't think guns are the underlying issue here. While I am not against regulation, I think plenty of events show that without firearms tragedies will still occur. So it would only be a small part of preventing these sort of events.
Gun culture is a major issue, even beyond the guns themselves. "Come and take em" and "fuck around and find out" are symptoms of a mentality that guns are a solution to solving problems that's on par with discussion, leaving, or de-escalating. When ultimately, guns are the final answer that should only be used when all other options have been exhausted.
Socioeconomic pressures and inequality issues need to be addressed to deal with most gun crimes, since mass shootings are the minority cases in which gun deaths occur. Yes, when they happen they are atrocious and make headlines and everyone hears and talks about it, but when people are dieing literally every day from guns we can't only focus on the events that catch media attention.
Mental health, and by extension, all health needs to be made a priority. Suicides by guns is by and far the most common method.
Media needs to stop stoking fear and divisiveness. We see too often than someone reacts with extreme actions to perceived threats that aren't really there. They've been primed to be afraid ALL THE TIME. So when someone knocks at the wrong door or uses their driveway to turn around they violent "protect" themselves from a threat that never existed.
Stop the worshipping of property. It is NEVER worth the taking of life to protect property. This goes back to gun culture where people believe that using a gun to protect their own shit is somehow a valid solution. This also extends to the police. Fuck them for violently protecting property over people.
Fix the police problem. At the very least, teach them fucking patience. At every point they try to end a non-violent interaction as fast as possible that they are often the ones to escalate to violence. Unless someone's life is directly and immediately threatened, chill the fuck out.
Personally, I don’t think guns are the underlying issue here. While I am not against regulation, I think plenty of events show that without firearms tragedies will still occur
Yes but it's literally the magnitude of it, which I covered.
They specifically banned the rifle I like shooting: Daniel Defense M4A1.
Guns aren’t just for hunting or defense. I wasn’t on board until I went to the range. I’m now a fan of rifles.
I’m not a huge fan of California spec rifles. Unless you buy multiple mags, switching out is a pain.
Now what WOULD be neat, is if I could buy the rifle and then purchase a magazine of ammo at the range, returning the magazine and unspent ammo at the counter
Guns aren’t just for hunting or defense. I wasn’t on board until I went to the range. I’m now a fan of rifles.
I'm going to say that hobbies are less important than public safety.
I do agree with your notion about restricting ammo. I believe Switzerland does that. We'd also need to restrict ammo components because otherwise you'd just have people reloading (making bullets) at home.
I don’t know why you’re being downvoted. We basically agreed, except for I advocated for handing magazines and rounds back into the range and you didn’t think I did.
While I agree that safety is more important than hobbies and if they cannot coexist, I would choose safety; however I believe in this instance that they can
I would argue that hunting, defense, and sport are not reasons we have the right to bear arms. Its to overthrow a tyrannical government.
Its to overthrow a tyrannical government.
It's actually to have well-armed militias at the state level. Individuals, unorganized will have no chance to overthrow any government. Hence the militia part.
The problem with that is that’s putting a lot of faith in the state both not being just a tool of the tyrannical government, or the state not being tyrannical themselves, which is why i support a more granular right to bear arms. But you are right that was the plain intention for the second amendment.
"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" verbatim text, the state ≠ the people. I'm sure the British thought the same thing when a rebellious colony started to fight.
Read the rest of it, not just the parts you like. This isn't the Bible.
We've seen 2 attempts to overthrow the federal government. 1 in the 1860s and 1 in 2020. Neither time was the government acting tyrannically. Neither time did it work. Neither time did guns help. Maybe guns aren't the answer to that problem, either.
Then it’s not protected/covered by the second amendment. The tyrannical qualifier prevents it from covering baseless coups. But there was a reason it was put in due to the harsh lessons learned from the revolutionary war.
I may reconsider my position on the second amendment if you can convince me that the government or the local police will not become tyrannical, ever…
I might change my position on the 2nd Amendment if you can show me that access to so many guns prevents a government from ever becoming tyrannical. So far, that access has only made society itself tyrannical and given the police all the excuse they needed to be able to use tanks, APCs, and other military equipment against us.
I mean, usually a rebellion against a government success is tied to its access to weaponry. I don’t know a single rebellion against tyranny that was successful without weapons.
I am for more regulations because obviously we got a massive problem here. but with my primary point being what i said above, how do you decide who can’t have a weapon without the government ultimately deciding who can have a gun, which defeats the purpose of having the right in the first place.
I was thinking about leaning into the militias where you have to be sponsored by a group that could have their rights to guns withdrawn as a whole when they foster a bad actor, to make sponsorships harder and to have a pressure to maintain connections with people and when someone starts throwing red flags or ghosting, there is a group with a vested interest to start interventions. But then there is the tricky bit of taking the guns when it’s time to enforce anything, still has the government choosing who can be armed. So i still am stuck.
That being said i don’t have a weapon.
And that's why I appendix carry a S&W 500. One shot, anywhere in meat, is a show stopper.
For those wondering, the second sentence, while unnecessarily explicit, is accurate. This gun is a revolver and would not be impacted by this law.
At $2/rd for a kinda rare $2,000 gun, I'd rather throw literal money at assailants harassing me.
Try $3-5 a round, but yeah, throwing quarters might be as effective.
This still allows bolt action for hunting
Do you honestly believe bolt-action is adequate for hunting?
If you need more than one shot in under a second you are a shit hunter and need to get back to the range.
People bow hunt and hunted that way for hundreds of years.
People normally don't bow hunt dangerous game, they bow hunt animals like deer and elk. Most hunters wouldn't use a bow to hunt boars.
People also used lead plumbing for hundreds of years. Doesn't mean we shouldn't use modern alternatives.
Most people don't hunt dangerous game. Why the fuck are you wanting to bear hunt? Get real and leave that to the wardens.
I was talking about animals like moose and boar, but people do hunt bears. Legally. It doesn't sound like you know anything about hunting.
Let rangers deal with large animals.
If you need multiple shots for a boar, you're fucking up. Go back to the range.
Really now, this is pathetic. Get back inside and let real hunters work. And stop trophy hunting FFS.
Let rangers deal with large animals.
If the rangers want to sell licenses to hunt mountain lions and bears, who am I to tell them they're wrong? Stay in your lane.