The Weld County Sheriff’s Office will comply with a Colorado Senate bill increasing regulations surrounding semi-automatic firearms, despite opposing the bill due to concerns of government overreach and an increased burden on the agency.
The bill, titled “Semiautomatic firearms & rapid-fire devices,” severely limits the manufacturing, distributing and purchasing of specified semiautomatic firearms. It defines a specified semiautomatic firearms as “a semiautomatic rifle or semiautomatic shotgun with a detachable magazine, or a gas-operated semiautomatic handgun with a detachable magazine.”
Governor Jared Polis signed the bill April 10 and it will go into effect Aug. 1.
At a Weld Board of County Commissioners meeting last week, sheriff Steve Reams called the bill, “one of the most draconian gun laws proposed in the state of Colorado in quite some time,” and said, in his opinion, it is “one more step to a complete ban of weapons” in Colorado.
At that meeting, three days before it was signed, the board of commissioners voted unanimously to oppose the bill.
“For the life of me, I don’t understand how some representatives down there do not understand the words ‘shall not be infringed,’” commissioner Jason Maxey said at the meeting.
Part of the bill lays out requirements people must meet to legally purchase or distribute the specialty weapons. To buy or sell a semiautomatic firearm covered by the bill, a resident must have:
Completed a hunter education course certified by the division of parks and wildlife and, within five years before making the purchase, complete a basic firearms safety course. Within five years before making the purchase, completed an extended firearms safety course. Completed an extended firearms safety course more than five years before making the purchase and completed a basic firearms safety course within five years before making the purchase.In order to enroll in a basic or extended firearms safety course, a person must hold a valid firearms safety course eligibility card — also known as a firearms course card — issued by a sheriff. To get a firearms course card, applicants must pass a fingerprint-based criminal history record check.
Reams said the bill creates an “unfunded mandate” that will put a strain not only on his office, but sheriff’s offices across the state.
“With 340,000 residents in Weld County, if you consider at least half are probably gun owners that might want to buy one of these types of weapons,” Reams said. “You can imagine the influx of folks that will be coming into my office.”
He also said he believes the bill will serve primarily as a method of collecting more taxes, stressing that it will do nothing to reduce crime.
“It’s ironic that legislature thinks that creating a gun will stop someone from committing a murder or a serious assault with weapon,” he said. “It hasn’t so far and I don’t see how this is going to help, either.”
While Reams said he vehemently disagrees with the bill, any refusal to perform the duties delegated to it will “essentially act as another impediment to the rights guaranteed in the Second Amendment,” the agency said in a news release Monday. The sheriff’s office is working on a plan to accommodate the new process before it goes into effect, according to that release, but will likely require additional staff and equipment.
The bill also requires the division of parks and wildlife to develop and maintain a records system of residents who hold a valid firearms course card and who have completed a hunter education course, a basic firearms safety course or an extended firearms safety course.
“It is not going to keep unlawful people who intend to do harm from doing so. They don’t care about abiding by the law,” commissioner Lynette Peppler said at the meeting. “It only keeps law-abiding citizens jumping through more hoops and creates more work for government employees.”
The full bill is available at leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb25-003.
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