DENVER — A bill slapping onerous new restrictions on gun shows in Colorado is on its way to the floor of the House of Representatives after easily clearing a Democrat-dominated committee.
House Bill 25-1238, Gun Show Requirements, is sponsored by Boulder Democrat Rep. Junie Joseph, Denver Democrat Rep. Sean Camacho, and Fort Collins Democrat Sen. Cathy Kipp. The bill as written would drastically change the way vendors do business at gun shows, as well as who can access the events.
The bill passed the House State, Civic, Military and Veteran’s Affairs committee on Monday by a vote of 8-3, with Republicans Scott Bottoms, Brandi Bradley and Stephanie Luck the only no votes. It is now headed to the full House for a vote, where it was initially scheduled to be heard Friday, but was laid over without amendments.
During committee testimony, Rep. Luck questioned one bill supporter about why he believed these new restrictions would be enforced after testifying that current laws are not.
The supporter stated the new laws would require vendors to police themselves, with Luck replying that putting the onerous to enforce laws on vendors didn’t make sense.
“You’ve said that law enforcement doesn’t have the capacity to enforce them, yet this would be an additional layer of enforcement,” Luck said. “A lot of this is just a restatement of current law.”
Under the new law, promoters of a gun show would be required to do the following:
- Prepare a security plan and submit the security plan to each local law enforcement agency with jurisdiction over the gun show.
- Have liability insurance for the gun show;
- Implement security measures at the gun show;
- Prohibit persons under 21 years of age from entering the gun show unless the person is accompanied by a parent, grandparent, or guardian;
- Limit vendors to Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) only;
- Verify that each firearm sold at a gun show is delivered in compliance with the required the 3-day waiting period; and
- Post certain notices at the gun show.
Violating any of these provisions would be a class 2 misdemeanor, additional violations would be a class 1 misdemeanor and add an additional prohibition from acting as a gun show promoter for 5 years.
While the bill sponsors said they would work with opponents to “make the bill better,” the amendments will have to come during floor work as the measure passed committee without any amendments.
“Less than 1 percent of guns are stolen from gun shows,” Bradley said. “We’re not doing anything here. We’re going after one business. We’re going after FFL’s that want to sell their guns. We’re not attacking the problem here. More regulations on the second amendment … we pass bill after bill after bill to regulate ammo and other things, and our crime rates are still off the charts.”
