Colorado Senate gives initial OK to amended semiautomatic weapons bill

The Colorado Senate gave initial approval to a bill that would limit the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms early Friday morning — but only after building in a loophole sought by Gov. Jared Polis and enabled by the absence of a needed Democratic senator.

When lawmakers first took to the Senate floor for a day of lengthy debate Thursday, Senate Bill 3 would’ve prohibited the sale or transfer of semiautomatic firearms that accept detachable magazines. That ban would have covered a large — if not total — swath of weapons that are colloquially considered assault weapons, though it wouldn’t have included most common handguns and shotguns.

By the time the Senate passed the bill on an 18-15 party-line vote just before 2 a.m. Friday, it had been altered. Now it would still allow those weapons to be sold to people who completed at least four hours of training, passed an exam and went through a vetting process similar to that required to obtain a concealed-carry permit.

Those who completed the requirements would have to redo them every five years if they wished to buy more weapons.

The amendment was hammered out between the bill’s Democratic sponsors and Polis’ staff in a deal that didn’t come fully into shape until late Thursday night, after hours — on top of weeks — of negotiations and what Sen. Julie Gonzales, one of the bill’s sponsors, called “a game of (expletive) chicken.”

“We spent quite a bit of time these last several weeks trying to get (the bill) to a space where we could be inclusive to everyone who was having concerns,” the bill’s other sponsor, Centennial Democratic Sen. Tom Sullivan, said shortly before the final vote. “That’s how it is that we ended up with the amendments that we did. That’s how we ended up with the late night, to make sure that our hunters and sportsmen — that we were listening to them.”

Late last week, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman wrote in a statement to The Post after an earlier bill delay that while the Democratic governor supported gun-violence prevention legislation, he wanted to ensure “that we are protecting Coloradans’ Second Amendment rights and respecting our state’s long standing traditions of hunting and sport shooting.”

The now-amended bill, which does not outright prohibit the possession of any firearms and would not take away guns that people already own, is set for a final vote in the Senate on Tuesday. It will then move to the House.

Sullivan said passing the amended bill was the right thing to do and that he supported it. He started and ended the day’s debate by holding up images of the 100-round magazine that had been used by the 2012 Aurora theater shooter to kill 12 people, including Sullivan’s son, Alex.

The late loophole was the result of converging dynamics.

One was opposition from Polis, whose staff had spent weeks trying to loosen the bill’s initial intent to ban a significant swath of firearms. A handful of Democratic senators had said they wouldn’t support the bill as written: Some were flatly opposed, and others supported the carveout sought by the governor. A first vote on the bill, scheduled for Feb. 7, had been delayed to allow for more negotiations.

The other dynamic was an absent senator. No such deal with Polis had been reached by Thursday morning, and Gonzales and Sullivan — who felt they had the votes even with a handful of holdouts — decided to press forward. But Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, an embattled Longmont Democrat, was excused from the Senate for the day for medical reasons.

Her absence meant the bill was one vote short, forcing the sponsors to make a choice: Seek a deal with Polis, delay again or try to flip a holdout.

After the Senate spent the first half of Thursday debating a contentious labor unions bill (which is also opposed by Polis), Sullivan and Gonzales arrived at option one that night. Republicans had spent much of the previous four hours filibustering, in part to express legitimate opposition to the bill and in part to give space for negotiations to continue.

Jaquez Lewis did not return a text seeking comment Thursday. She is currently under investigation for allegedly mistreating her aides. The ethics committee investigating her, which will deliberate next week and could ultimately seek her expulsion from the legislature, is chaired by Gonzales.

More details on bill changes

Under the gun bill’s newly negotiated terms, a person could still buy otherwise-banned weapons under certain conditions. If the person has previously completed a hunter’s safety course, they then would need to take a four-hour class and pass both an exam and a background check.

If they haven’t completed hunter’s safety, then they would need to take a 12-hour course, then the exam and the background vetting.

Another amendment passed late Thursday exempted a slew of common hunting rifles from the proposed ban, plus some firearms that are old enough to have seen service in World War II. The carveouts did not change opposition from the Senate’s minority Republican caucus, and the bill can expect extensive fights when it arrives in the House next week, presuming final Senate passage.

Senate Republicans said the measure violated the 2nd Amendment — which Sen. John Carson of Douglas County quoted from the chamber’s floor — and that it would do little to stop gun violence.