Why It Matters: Colorado Is Defying a National Trend
Mr. Polis signed the payments 5 months after an assailant killed 5 folks and injured greater than a dozen others in an L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub in Colorado Springs. The capturing happened final November, lower than two weeks after Mr. Polis, a Democrat, gained re-election to a second time period.
While states with Republican-led legislatures have been loosening restrictions on weapons, Colorado — the place Democrats management each chambers of the legislature and the governor’s workplace — is one of some states bucking that pattern. Maryland, which simply completed its legislative session and can be managed by Democrats, is one other.
Colorado has been house to a number of high-profile mass shootings and has the 18th highest gun-death charge within the nation. The state additionally has one of many highest gun suicide charges within the nation, in response to the newest knowledge from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“There are shootings everyday in Colorado that don’t make the news; the majority of that is suicides,” stated Lisa Geller, state affairs director on the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.
Background: The State Has a History of Mass Shootings
The regulation that granted the additional protections for gun and ammunition producers and sellers in opposition to lawsuits from victims was handed in 2000, the 12 months after the mass capturing at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., exterior Denver.
Mass killings at a movie show in Aurora in 2012, at a grocery store in Boulder in 2021 and the current assault in Colorado Springs have put the state within the highlight for the nation’s gun carnage.
What’s Next: Pro-Gun Groups Are Already Challenging the Laws
The enlargement of the crimson flag regulation is efficient instantly. The remainder of the legal guidelines may very well be implement by later this 12 months, although they’re already being challenged.
Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, a gun-rights advocacy group in Colorado, has filed lawsuits over the three-day ready interval and minimal age requirement. The group stated that folks needing to defend themselves won’t have the ability to get a gun in time to take action.
Another invoice that may ban the manufacturing and sale of ghost weapons continues to be in entrance of legislators and is prone to move throughout this time period, which ends subsequent week.
Source: www.nytimes.com