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.

  • thantik@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    This will get struck down, and it’ll be the one thing I agree with when it does. You can’t just make everything except bolt-action rifles illegal. Semi-automatic firearms encompasses 99% of what people use for self defense in America. This is a clear violation of rights.

    • kobra@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Right or wrong it’s a constitutional right for a reason, and that reason has nothing to do with hunting.

      Similar to GOP and abortion, dems need to drop this fight. Let’s fix healthcare and save/improve more lives than almost everything else you could spend time on.

      • Neato@ttrpg.network
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        3 months ago

        You’re right. It has to due with being able to call up a militia. I don’t see any of these gun stores asking for militia papers before selling.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        You ever seen cops shoot?

        I’ve seen a bunch of 'em get DQ’d from matches for being unsafe, or drop out when it was clear their scores were trash.

          • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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            3 months ago

            They use hacks like ESP and wallhacks.

            In all seriousness, though, it’s only because they always outnumber and have more resources than the person/people that they are in a shootout with. Not because they are better with firearms than an average gun owner who also trains with their firearm.

            • blazera@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              and have more resources than the person/people that they are in a shootout with.

              Yeah, and that’s what you’re up against thinking your guns are keeping the government in check.

              • bastion@feddit.nl
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                3 months ago

                Not really. At the point where there’s consensus that we are, in fact, in a civil war, then:

                A) you’re not some nutjob holed up in his house using his neighbor as a hostage B) there are others, and organization is doable

                Yes, the government has organization and experience. Hopefully, it’ll just never be an issue. Likely, there would be internal divisions, as well. But being ready for it to be an issue can both help prevent it becoming one, and give one the capacity to have an impact if it does become an issue.

                • blazera@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  If things get to an actual civil war where tyrannical government is willing to use its resources, i think you are severely underestimating the resources. The satellite and drone intel, the ability to destroy routes civilian vehicles can take, the aerial strikes. Civilians arent gonna get together no matter the heads they can put together and build competing anti air capabilities. Its not like a battle of damage numbers in a game, its ability to even play the games that they can. Like a well armored knight fighting against squirrels, the numbers dont matter, the little claws cant get through steel.

                  Likely, there would be internal divisions, as well.

                  Thats all you can hope for, thats the only way civilians in any developed country survives:having a government that doesnt want to kill them. Armed population or not, it really has no effect.

              • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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                3 months ago

                …And yet, when cops see protestors that are as heavily armed as they are, historically they suddenly get very, very respectful. When the Proud Man-Children discover that the BLM protestors are armed and disciplined, they suddenly lose all their courage. Cops suddenly get really, really nervous when they realize that if they start shit, they aren’t going to have a numerical advantage. When you’ve got one suspect and 20 cops though?

                Cops aren’t there to protect or serve the people; they’re there to protect and serve the status quo.

                But damn, people sure do hop on cops’ dicks whenever someone says they might want to be able to protect themselves rather than hoping that cops will do it.

                • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works
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                  3 months ago

                  Gun grabbers will say they don’t trust police and then say they’re the only ones who should be armed in the same paragraph. It’s wild.

                • blazera@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  I think most examples of armed protests in the US are on the side of police. But US police are also an example of America’s problem with too many guns, they kill way too many people and should also have fewer guns.

      • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        The goal isn’t to beat the cops. It’s to defend against neonazis.

        Do you think the cops are gonna disarm neonazis? Or will they just use gun bans as an excuse to murder more black people?

        • blazera@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Guns dont defend shit. We have all the guns, its not going well. A gun ban at least slows down supply. And starts a long path to becoming like developed countries that arent murderous gun nuts like we are.

          • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Tell you what. How about you pass a law to disarm people based on their hateful ideologies FIRST. Make Nazism illegal, then disarm, prosecute, and imprison the neonazis, by force of law. They are currently trying to ignite a new Civil War against America, yet you want to disarm the rest of us in the face of that.

            Fix that, then we can discuss disarming law abiding citizens.

            You gonna address the question I asked? Cops only use gun bans as an excuse to kill more black people.

            • blazera@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              I think youd have a hard time defining and identifying nazis in legal terms.

              And i dont trust any gun owner to be a law abiding citizen, we’re all animals that can get very emotional. And we have the results of that in our horrendous homicide rate.

              • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Really? Because Germany managed it. Nazism is illegal there. They prosecute anyone who professes Nazi ideas. I don’t care how hard it would be. You think confiscating all the guns is easier?

                I don’t care who you trust. I care that this nation is too foolish and cowardly to root out the cancer it has harbored since long before it was founded. Ban sympathy for the Confederacy. Ban Nazi ideology. Prosecute those who profess it. Ruin those who fund them. Cleanse the police departments of all the Nazi cops. We will never be free of them until the day we make their ideologies illegal.

                Until then, piss off trying to disarm the millions of people who only wish to defend their homes from exactly those people pushing for civil war.

                Gee whiz, you sure don’t want to address the fact that cops only use gun bans as an excuse to murder black people.

                • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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                  3 months ago

                  just a heads up, west germany famously integrated nazis into the government and still has them to this day.

  • blazera@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    If you read this, after this is struck down i want you to remember this bill the next time you read about another mass shooting. I know youre numb to them but realize they arent normal for developed countries.

    • jaschen@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      In 2014 there was this guy in Taiwan that started mass knifing people in the MRT Train station. The MOST he was able to stab was 22 people and killed 4.

      He actually had to sit down to rest before continuing to stab people because he was tired. In a documentary, he trained for months to have the stamina to maximize kills. It would be different if he had a handgun let alone a AR-15.

      Taiwan is a total ban for all guns.

      Seems like your stupid comment backfired.

    • Leg@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I imagine there’d be discussion regarding how we might restrict a person’s ability to publicly and freely stab multiple people ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

      Which is the correct course of action. People should not be allowed to murder people, and things should be done to make it harder to do.

      • fiend_unpleasant ☑️ @lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        how about just prosecute the crime that is already happening? I mean murder is a crime. The most used murder weapon is a screwdriver. Should we also ban those?

  • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Cool.

    Now pass some laws banning hate speech, and regulate what religions can and can’t talk about; the pope has no business saying that transgender ideology is sinful! While they’re at it, they should make sure that criminal defendants are required to confess if they have committed a crime, and it would probably be a lot easier to just forbid lawyers from working with people charged with crimes. Oh, and ban pot and booze, since those and TikTok are going to be the downfall of the youth.

  • slumlordthanatos@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I feel like a better option here would be limits on magazine capacities. Limiting internal and box magazine capacities to 5-10 rounds on semiautomatic firearms could have the same effect without it being an outright ban. Maybe have different capacities for handguns and rifles.

    This is just more ammo (heh) for 2nd Amendment voters. Being a bit more clever about it could convince some of them to drop their resistance.

  • Neato@ttrpg.network
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    3 months ago

    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.

  • quindraco@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    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.

    Zero states ban semiautomatic firearms.