Colorado Senate debate on bill banning manufacture, sale of semiautomatic guns delayed amid negotiations with Jared Polis
The sponsors are working on amending the bill to alleviate the governor's concerns and bring him fully on board
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This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at kunc.org.
After gearing up for a big legislative fight on the Senate floor, state lawmakers postponed debate Friday on a proposed ban the manufacture and sale of certain semiautomatic rifles, shotguns and handguns that can accept detachable ammunition magazines.
The main sponsors of Senate Bill 3, Democratic Sens. Tom Sullivan of Centennial and Julie Gonzales of Denver, said the delay is because negotiations with the governor’s office over the measure are ongoing.
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Which guns would be affected by Colorado’s proposed ban on semiautomatic weapons with detachable magazines
The Colorado Sun analyzed Senate Bill 3 to parse out the semiautomatic rifles, shotguns and pistols that couldn’t be manufactured, sold or purchased if the measure becomes law. The legislation would not affect possession. Read more
“We’re working our way through it, and when we get finished, we’ll be in a positive place, and we’ll get that to his desk for him to sign,” Sullivan said Friday morning.
Gov. Jared Polis told the Colorado Capitol News Alliance this week he has yet to decide whether he would sign the bill if it’s passed by the legislature. He is generally skeptical of policies that target specific models of firearms.
But the governor said he’s not completely opposed to the measure because it would not impact any guns Coloradans already own.
“Like the sponsors, the governor takes preventing gun violence seriously which is why we appreciate the additional time to work together on this important issue,” a spokesperson for Polis said in a text message Friday.
The sponsors are working on amending the bill to alleviate Polis’ concerns and bring him fully on board.
Five amendments were already added to the bill during a committee hearing last month, but they were mostly technical in nature.
“I appreciate any and every opportunity to have conversations with the governor’s team about the importance of passing this policy that will save lives,” Gonzales said. “We’ve been having several conversations, several times a day.”
Gonzales and Sullivan hope the negotiations will be resolved within a week and currently plan to bring it up for debate in the Senate on Thursday.
But support for the bill has been chipped away. One Democratic cosponsor, Sen. Mark Snyder of Manitou Springs, now says he won’t vote for the measure, citing doubts over its reach and concerns from his constituents.
Sponsors still believe Senate Bill 3 has enough support to make it out of the Senate. Of the chamber’s 23 Democrats, 19 have signaled they plan to vote “yes” on it. All of the chamber’s 12 Republicans are expected to vote against it.
The bill needs 18 votes to pass.
With those numbers, Republicans can’t block it from passing, but they are expected to fight it as much as possible through extended debate on the Senate floor.
“It might be a long night,” Senate President James Coleman said earlier this week, “but at the same time, I think we’ve had conversations to try to find areas where we can agree and align.”
If the measure gets through the Senate, it then moves over to the more progressive-leaning Colorado House of Representatives, where sponsors say they’ve lined up enough support to pass it.
However, House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, said she is undecided on her vote.
Polis told The Sun last month that while a ban on the manufacture and sale of certain semiautomatic firearms with a removable ammunition magazine isn’t his preferred method of tackling gun violence, he’s not fundamentally opposed to the idea.
Polis said he thinks the state’s focus “should be on guns used in crime,” which is why his priority firearm bill at the Capitol this year targets stolen weapons. But he’s not uniformly opposed to the bill since it does not prohibit the possession of any guns and thus wouldn’t affect weapons people already own.
“I’m not entirely sure why the legislature wants to play around with different gun models,” he said. “Certainly always a red line for me has been don’t affect things that people already have. This proposal obviously clears that.”
The governor said in deciding whether to sign or veto the bill he wants “to make sure it doesn’t interfere with legal, law-abiding gun owners in our state for hunting, for home defense or sport.”
Colorado Sun staff writer Jesse Paul contributed to this report.
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.
