Colorado lawmakers narrowly voted down a state House bill calling for the ban of so-called ”assault weapons” on Wednesday, in a vote that included three Democrats joining with the Republicans to defeat the measure.
The Colorado bill, HB23-1230, would have made it illegal to manufacture, import, purchase, sell, or transfer an “assault weapon” and prohibit a person from possessing a rapid-fire trigger activator. After hours of debate, the lawmakers voted down the bill in a 7-6 vote.
A local gun rights organization, the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, organized hundreds of witnesses to testify against passing the proposed “assault weapons” ban.
“The turnout was very good, overflowing into other rooms with about six to one against the ban,” Shawn Herrin, who helped organize the witnesses, told the Daily Caller News Foundation “The witnesses laid out concise arguments with good data and delved into the actual causes of mass killings.”
Signs on the door handles at Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colorado on April 24, 2018. – Lauren Boebert opened Shooters Grill in 2013 with her husband Jason in the small town of Rifle, Colorado, the only city in the United States named after a gun according to them (Photo by EMILY KASK / AFP) (Photo credit should read EMILY KASK/AFP via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Washington state passed a bill banning over 50 different firearms, including the popular AR-15. The law bans the sale, distribution, manufacture and import of the firearms, with certain exceptions for law enforcement and military personnel. (RELATED: Biden’s ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban Would Not Have Stopped Nashville Mass Shooting, Experts say)
A representative for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), Mark Oliva, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the Colorado legislature’s decision “was a tremendous victory for the firearm industry and law-abiding gun owners in Colorado. This legislation was an attempt to block the sale and transfer of the nation’s most popular selling centerfire rifle today – the Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR).”
“There are more than 24.4 million of these rifles in circulation today, more than there are Ford F-150s on the road,” Oliva said. “NSSF worked tirelessly with state legislators to ensure that they understood that commonly-owned firearms are protected by the Second Amendment and that has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Heller and Bruen decisions.”
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