Colorado lawmakers are considering whether to ban bump stocks like the one used by a Las Vegas gunman in October to rain fire on a country music concert that killed 58 people and left hundreds injured.
The uphill legislative effort rekindles a heated debate about gun regulations in a state with a legacy of high-profile mass shootings and mirrors an effort in Denver to impose a local ban on the devices that allow semi-automatic rifles to mimic automatic weapons.
State Sen. Mike Merrifield, D-Colorado Springs, introduced a bill the first day of the 2018 session to make the sale, purchase or possession of a multi-burst trigger activator a Class 5 felony punishable by a one to three years in prison. The measure includes tougher penalties for subsequent violations and builds on current restrictions for firearm silencers and machine guns.
“Why would you need a bump stock unless you intended to kill as many people as fast as you could?” he said. “That should not be a partisan issue. Protecting the lives of Colorado citizens from insane mass killers should be something we should all be happy to join in.”
But like most gun-related legislation, the bill will draw plenty of criticism from Republican lawmakers, who are expected to kill the measure when it receives its first hearing in coming weeks.
Senate President Kevin Grantham, who had a relative at the concert in Las Vegas where the shooting took place, is a prominent opponent.
“This won’t save a single soul,” the Canon City Republican said. “This won’t help the problem that they perceive. I think all it does is infringe on somebody’s ability to operate within their Second Amendment rights.”
Grantham said it is “irrelevant whether I had someone there or I didn’t have someone (at the concert) — the principle is the same.”
Invoking Colorado’s divisive political history on guns, he compared the effort to Democratic legislation in 2013 that banned gun magazines with more than 15 rounds of ammunition, a move that came after a gunman killed a dozen people at an Aurora movie theater. The stricter gun laws led critics to recall two sitting Democratic lawmakers.
“It’s a piece of equipment on a piece of equipment that the other side hates,” Grantham said. “And if you start banning such things and start regulating such things and you start infringing on people’s rights to have pieces of equipment that go on an implement.”
Merrifield acknowledged the politics surrounding his bill, saying he was “flabbergasted” that Republicans could oppose such a measure.
“I’m waiting for somebody to explain to me a legitimate reason why any gun owner would need to convert a legal weapon into an illegal weapon,” he said.
In an interview, Gov. John Hickenlooper stopped short of supporting a full ban on bump stocks. Instead, he said, the devices should be subject to the same stringent approval process that applies to owning an automatic weapon.
“I’m not saying ban them,” the Democrat said. “I’m just saying you put them in the same category with weapons that are, with all intents and purposes, identical.”
The Denver City Council on Tuesday night held a generally favorable public hearing on a bump-stock ban within city limits that is nearing the finish line.
But since the city long has prohibited the types of semiautomatic rifles that can be modified with bump stocks, the measure stands as a symbolic show of support for stronger gun control measures in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting.
A final vote by the Denver council is set for next Monday.
