{"id":23597,"date":"2025-02-10T10:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-02-10T17:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-senate-debate-on-sale-of-semiautomatic-guns-delayed-amid-negotiations-with-polis\/"},"modified":"2025-02-10T17:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-02-10T17:30:07","slug":"colorado-senate-debate-on-sale-of-semiautomatic-guns-delayed-amid-negotiations-with-polis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-senate-debate-on-sale-of-semiautomatic-guns-delayed-amid-negotiations-with-polis\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Senate debate on sale of semiautomatic guns delayed amid negotiations with Polis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"An
An AR-15 with a detachable magazine at Bristlecone Shooting, Training and Retail Center in Lakewood, Colorado, on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. The Colorado legislature is considering a bill that would ban the manufacture, purchase and sale of semiautomatic rifles and shotguns that are capable of accepting detachable ammunition magazines, as well as some semiautomatic pistols and handguns. (Jesse Paul, The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

After gearing up for a big legislative fight on the Senate floor, state lawmakers postponed debate Friday on a proposed ban on the manufacture and sale of certain semiautomatic rifles, shotguns and handguns that can accept detachable ammunition magazines.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s office over the measure are ongoing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working our way through it, and when we get finished, we\u2019ll be in a positive place, and we\u2019ll get that to his desk for him to sign,\u201d Sullivan said Friday morning.<\/p>\n

Gov. Jared Polis told the Colorado Capitol News Alliance this week he has yet to decide whether he would sign the bill if it\u2019s passed by the legislature. He is generally skeptical of policies that target specific models of firearms.<\/p>\n

But the governor said he\u2019s not completely opposed to the measure because it would not impact any guns Coloradans already own.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike the sponsors, the governor takes preventing gun violence seriously which is why we appreciate the additional time to work together on this important issue,\u201d a spokesperson for Polis said in a text message Friday.<\/p>\n

The sponsors are working on amending the bill to alleviate Polis\u2019 concerns and bring him fully on board.<\/p>\n

Five amendments were already added to the bill during a committee hearing last month, but they were mostly technical in nature.<\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate any and every opportunity to have conversations with the governor\u2019s team about the importance of passing this policy that will save lives,\u201d Gonzales said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been having several conversations, several times a day.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But support for the bill has been chipped away. One Democratic cosponsor, Sen. Marc Snyder of Manitou Springs, now says he won\u2019t vote for the measure, citing doubts over its reach and concerns from his constituents.<\/p>\n

Sponsors still believe Senate Bill 3 has enough support to make it out of the Senate. Of the chamber\u2019s 23 Democrats, 19 have signaled they plan to vote \u201cyes\u201d on it. All of the chamber\u2019s 12 Republicans are expected to vote against it.<\/p>\n

The bill needs 18 votes to pass.<\/p>\n

With those numbers, Republicans can\u2019t block it from passing, but they are expected to fight it as much as possible through extended debate on the Senate floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might be a long night,\u201d Senate President James Coleman said earlier this week, \u201cbut at the same time, I think we\u2019ve had conversations to try to find areas where we can agree and align.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the measure gets through the Senate, it then moves over to the more progressive-leaning Colorado House of Representatives, where sponsors say they\u2019ve lined up enough support to pass it.<\/p>\n

However, House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, said she is undecided on her vote.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t his preferred method of tackling gun violence, he\u2019s not fundamentally opposed to the idea.<\/p>\n

Polis said he thinks the state\u2019s focus \u201cshould be on guns used in crime,\u201d which is why his priority firearm bill at the Capitol this year targets stolen weapons. But he\u2019s not uniformly opposed to the bill since it does not prohibit the possession of any guns and thus wouldn\u2019t affect weapons people already own.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not entirely sure why the legislature wants to play around with different gun models,\u201d he said. \u201cCertainly always a red line for me has been don\u2019t affect things that people already have. This proposal obviously clears that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governor said in deciding whether to sign or veto the bill he wants \u201cto make sure it doesn\u2019t interfere with legal, law-abiding gun owners in our state for hunting, for home defense or sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado Sun staff writer Jesse Paul contributed to this report. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

sponsors are working on amending the bill to alleviate the governor\u2019s concerns and bring him fully on board<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23597","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=23597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23597"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}