{"id":113974,"date":"2015-03-12T19:31:16","date_gmt":"2015-03-13T01:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ammo-repeal-moves-ahead\/"},"modified":"2015-03-12T19:31:16","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T01:31:16","slug":"ammo-repeal-moves-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ammo-repeal-moves-ahead\/","title":{"rendered":"Ammo repeal moves ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 3-2 Monday to repeal the state law limiting high-capacity ammunition magazines to 15 rounds. The bill is unlikely to make it through the House, where Democrats have control.<\/span>Associated Press file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 Republicans controlling a Senate committee on Monday passed a measure that would repeal the state\u2019s ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines.<\/p>\n

The hearing focused on magazines of more than 15 rounds, which Democrats banned when they controlled both chambers in 2013.<\/p>\n

Debate was expected to last into the evening, but testimony finished early, allowing lawmakers to take a vote, which passed on a 3-2 party-line tally.<\/p>\n

Republicans are likely to push the measure through the Senate, where they control the chamber and have the support of four Democrats. But the bill is unlikely to make it through the House, where Democrats sit in the majority and are considering sending the measure to an unfavorable committee.<\/p>\n

The debate on Monday once again fell back to whether the law is enforceable.<\/p>\n

County sheriffs point out that the language of the law makes it difficult to determine who is allowed to possess high-capacity ammunition magazines since law enforcement is required to determine \u201ccontinuous possession,\u201d a provision of the measure that they say is undefined.<\/p>\n

Sheriffs also say they do not know what constitutes a high-capacity ammunition magazine since ordinary magazines can be easily converted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have not seen any effect, one way or the other; it has done nothing to reduce crime,\u201d said Sheriff Mike McIntosh, the sheriff of Adams County, who represented the County Sheriffs of Colorado.<\/p>\n

An attorney for Rocky Mountain Gun Owners group said the law effectively made most magazines illegal because of its broad language.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way this law works is it\u2019s an absolute prohibition on ammunition-feed devices for firearms,\u201d James Bardwell said. \u201cThe effect of this is limited because the law allows people to keep the magazines they held as of the date the law was enacted, and because magazines are not otherwise regulated or restricted, there\u2019s no way to tell when somebody procured them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue boiled over in 2013 when two Senate Democrats were recalled from office after supporting gun-control laws. A third Senate Democrat resigned in the face of a separate recall effort.<\/p>\n

But gun-control supporters say the Legislature did the right thing to ban high-capacity magazines. Lawmakers also required background checks for private sales and transfers of firearms.<\/p>\n

Eileen McCarron, with gun-control advocates Colorado Ceasefire, pointed to shootings in 2012 at an Aurora movie theater and at a Newtown, Conn., elementary.<\/p>\n

She suggested that limiting magazines could lead to less bloodshed when such horrific incidents occur.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven untrained shooters can fire off a large number of bullets in a short period of time,\u201d she said. \u201cRun from this bill.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

pushes rollback<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[94,150,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-113974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-firearms","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113974"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=113974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}