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.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
    296·
    8 months ago

    Supreme Court shoots it down in 3-2-1…

    The Heller ruling in 2008 already decided this.

    Washington D.C. had effectively banned pistols, the court ruled then:

    https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/

    “As the quotations earlier in this opinion demonstrate, the inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right. The handgun ban amounts to a prohibition of an entire class of “arms” that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose. The prohibition extends, moreover, to the home, where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute. Under any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied to enumerated constitutional rights,[Footnote 27] banning from the home “the most preferred firearm in the nation to ‘keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family,” 478 F. 3d, at 400, would fail constitutional muster.”

    So, no, you can’t ban an entire class of weapon.

    • Serinus@lemmy.world
      22·
      8 months ago

      The whole bit about being primarily used for a lawful purpose seems important.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      710·
      8 months ago

      So, no, you can’t ban an entire class of weapon.

      I don’t know about that. In general, rocket-propelled weapons and land mines are not legal for ownership. You even need special dispensation to own a fully automatic machine gun.

      • jordanlund@lemmy.world
        142·
        8 months ago

        Those are explosives, completely different deal from firearms. Supreme court ruled on that too, Caetano, 2016:

        https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/577/411/

        “The Second Amendment covers all weapons that may be defined as ‘bearable arms,’ even if they did not exist when the Bill of Rights was drafted and are not commonly used in warfare."

        Caetano is really my favorite of these rulings because it started out having nothing to do with guns.

        Woman, scared of her ex, bought a stun gun for protection. Massachusetts arrested her, stated “stun guns didn’t exist back then, no 2nd Amendment right to a stun gun.”

        Court “um, actually’d” them pretty hard.

        So, you can’t ban a class of gun (Heller, 2008) and you can’t ban a bearable arm just because it didn’t exist 200 years ago (Caetano, 2016.)

        And the court has only gotten MORE conservative since then, not less. :( This new ban is going to go nowhere fast, shame Colorado taxpayers are going to have to pay for a losing case.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
          310·
          8 months ago

          You said ‘weapons,’ not ‘guns.’ If you meant guns, that would be a different issue. However, even there, fully-automatic machine guns are not generally available with a simple background check like other guns. You have to apply for a federal license to get them. So they are treated quite differently.