Tim Harty, The Business Times

Colorado District 7 Sen. Janice Rich calls it a bad bill.

A couple of Grand Junction firearms retailers agree and say its passage could be disastrous to their stores’ bottom lines.

Democrat-sponsored SB25-003, which passed in the Colorado Senate last week and now is making its way through the Colorado House, wasn’t in its final iteration as of the printing of this edition. With the potential for changes between then and The Business Times’ publishing date, the simplistic summary of the bill from the Legislature’s website is: In Colorado it would prohibit “knowingly manufacturing, distributing, transferring, selling, or purchasing a specified semiautomatic firearm.”

And a specified semiautomatic firearm in the bill is defined as “a semiautomatic rifle or semiautomatic shotgun with a detachable magazine or a gas-operated semiautomatic handgun with a detachable magazine. The bill excludes from the definition certain types of firearms and specified models of firearms.”

Then, there are exemptions, most notably that “the prohibition does not apply to the transfer or sale of a specified semiautomatic firearm to, and receipt or purchase of a specified semiautomatic firearm by, a person who:

“Completed a hunter education course certified by the division of parks and wildlife and, within 5 years before making the purchase, completed a basic firearms safety course;

“Within 5 years before making the purchase, completed an extended firearms safety course; or “Completed an extended firearms safety course more than 5 years before making the purchase and completed a basic firearms safety course within 5 years before making the purchase.”

That means the semiautomatic firearms that stand to be prohibited can still be sold and purchased in Colorado when those conditions are met.

And that amendment to the bill meant little to Rich, because gun buyers will have to pay for the education and safety courses that will be required. The courses can be as few as four hours for a person who is current on courses, or as many as 12 hours for someone who doesn’t meet any course-work requirements.

“It’s still a bad bill,” she said. “I think it still infringes upon a Second Amendment right. And the whole purpose of this bill is to make it harder to purchase guns in Colorado.”

She added, “Even though you have a constitutional right to own a gun, now you’re going to have to pay for that right by having 12 more hours of schooling, I guess you can say, before you can purchase one of those guns that have a removable magazine.”

Chris Walker, store manager of Jerry’s Outdoor Sports, 2999 North Ave., said if the bill becomes law, “It’s gonna create a very problematic barrier for buyers, because now they have to go through and get a bunch of paperwork, get blessed by the state and beg the Crown’s permission to come in and buy a firearm, something that has been historically protected by constitutional rights or asserted by constitutional rights, I should say.”

He said it also sets the precedent for having to have some kind of licensure to exercise fundamental rights.

When it comes to operating a business that sells guns, Walker echoed Rich’s comment about the bill making it harder to purchase guns in Colorado.

“Now, we have another layer of record keeping and policing that we have to do,” he said. “We have to ensure that everybody has the proper paperwork.”

Walker said it will undoubtedly harm firearms sales, as anything that’s inconvenient can be a deterrent to a potential gun buyer.

“Unfortunately, we live in a convenience-driven society, right? And we have a lot of people who, if it’s inconvenient for them, they just won’t do it,” he said. “How many of them are just going to say, ‘Screw it, I don’t care any more. I’m not going to even try.’”

If the bill becomes law, Walker fears it could be devastating, because gun sales are such a large part of Jerry’s Outdoor Sports’ business.

“From the business side of things we’ll probably have to figure out some new business strategies,” he said. “Like we’re going to adapt as best as we can. The store’s been here for 40 years, we’re not looking to go anywhere.”

Top Shot Guns owner Dwight Cleland hasn’t ruled out the possibility he’ll have to close his store at 2454 U.S. 6&50, Unit 107. He bought the store in October 2024 after managing it since January 2015.

The amendment requiring safety education does make a difference to Cleland, because he teaches concealed-carry classes, and he expects he will teach some of the classes the bill requires if it becomes law.

“We will modify when we see it, but more than likely, if there’s semiautomatic gun bans, we will probably likely be required to close the retail side and just maintain a training presence,” he said.

Without that amendment, Cleland said he would’ve taken entirely different measures.

“If it went all the way through as originally planned, I would have bought everything I could possibly get, that I could clear out before the drop-dead date, and I would have a piss-off-a-politician special,” he said. “I would sell them just at $25 over cost, just to get as many out in safe public hands, through legal background checks, to make sure that people were able to take care of things.”

In a similar vein, even with the amended version of the bill, Rich offered advice to Colorado’s gun buyers, saying, “Purchase whatever guns that you want, support your local firearm dealer, and when you can afford them, purchase whatever guns you can and stock up on whatever magazines you can. And then, after September of 2025, if this bill passes and the governor signs it, know your quickest route to your Second Amendment-friendly states to purchase your ammunition from there.”

That Cleland even has to deal with another gun bill has grown tiresome. Cleland thinks politicians are approaching guns the wrong way because they don’t understand guns.

“They don’t know what it is. They don’t know how it works. They don’t know why it works. They don’t know what it’s for,” he said. “They’re just afraid of it, because they’re ignorant of its ability, of what it’s designed to do and how it’s designed to help people.

“Instead of legislating, if they would just educate.”

Cleland gave the example of Click It or Ticket, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s seat-belt-safety-awareness campaign.

“I mean, Click It or Ticket was all over the United States for a while,” he said. “When’s it gonna say: Lock up your guns and keep them away from your unauthorized users?”