The Colorado House has given its preliminary approval to a bill cracking down on ammunition sales to adults under the age of 21, but not before making some significant changes to its original form.
As introduced, HB 1133 would have simply barred anyone under the age of 21 from purchasing ammunition from a retailer in Colorado, but just like the sweeping semi-auto ban introduced in the state Senate this year, the bill was heavily amended in the hopes of attracting more votes. What remains is, unfortunately, still a dumpster fire when it comes to respecting the Second Amendment rights of under-21s.
Under House Bill 1133, retailers would be required to keep bullets off unlocked shelves, and it would also ban the ammo vending machines that popped up in some Colorado communities last year. Retailers that violate the provision would first face a civil penalty, with subsequent violations treated as a misdemeanor crime.
The measure passed voice and procedural votes Friday, with the House’s minority caucus of Republicans opposed. It now needs a final vote in the House, which is expected this week, before moving to the Senate.
The bill initially would’ve prohibited adults under the age of 21 from buying ammo, in step with a previous measure blocking younger adults from buying guns at all. But the bill’s sponsors — Democratic Reps. Monica Duran and Lindsay Gilchrist — introduced several changes Friday, including allowing younger people to buy ammunition if they’re in the military, live in rural parts of the state, use the ammo at a shooting range or have passed a hunter safety course.
The bill would also allow anyone who is now between the ages of 18 and 21 to continue purchasing ammunition, grandfathering them in.
Should a person buy ammo online or have it delivered, the delivery driver must verify the purchaser’s age, as they would in a store. The measure defines the items covered as “an ammunition or cartridge case, primer, bullet or propellant powder designed for use in a firearm.”
Requiring ammo to be kept behind locked cases is annoying for retailers and customers alike, but it’s not that onerous a provision. Banning the use of ammo vending machines is odd, though, given that the ammunition in those machines is locked up until it’s purchased, and buyers must show a valid photo ID before their purchases are dispensed.
The carveouts for young adults offered by Duran and Gilchrist are also bizarre, and frankly, do nothing to make the bill any more palatable from either a practical or constitutional standpoint. While courts around the country have split on the question of when our Second Amendment rights kick in, the Supreme Court has indicated that members of the political community are fully vested with their right to keep and bear arms; a notion that would explicitly protect the right of 18, 19, and 20-year-olds to purchase and possess both guns and ammunition. Declaring that these young adults can only buy a box of .223 or 9mm if they live in a rural county, are in the military, have taken a hunter safety course, or will only use the ammo at the range where it was purchased would deprive many young adults who can legally possess a gun from being able to buy the ammuntion necessary to use it for its intended purpose.
House Republicans argued that the bill would do little to prevent gun violence. Several said they began handling guns and ammunition at a young age.
Colorado Springs Rep. Ken DeGraaf claimed attempts at gun control would lead to “genocide,” and other Republicans blamed mass shootings on mental illness, a frequent conservative argument against tighter gun regulations.
“We’ve got to stop blaming other objects — guns, ammo — for horrific events,” said Republican Rep. Carlos Barron of Fort Lupton.
I don’t think Colorado’s Democratic majority is capable of blaming individuals for their actions when they can point the finger at guns instead. For more than a decade the Democrats in the statehouse have adopted a steady trickle of anti-2A legislation ranging from “red flag” laws to bans on “large capacity” magazines, all while violent crime has either increased or remained at elevated levels across the state.
At this point the evidence clearly shows that the Democrats’ diet of infringements on our right to keep and bear arms hasn’t starved criminals of their ability to carry out home invasions, gang shootings, or mass murder. It’s the law abiding who’ve suffered the impact of the Left’s repeated incursions on the Second Amendment, and you’d have to be blind or willfully ignorant to believe that Democrats are unaware of that fact.
HB 1133, in both its original and modified form, is nothing more than an attack on the ability for young adults to exercise a fundamental civil right. It won’t stop a single criminal, who could always steal ammunition or acquire it on the black market, from family or friends, or even out-of-state if need be. The idea that restricting ammo sales to young adults is downright silly, but HB 1133 could very well become law in the coming weeks, and the harms it will create are no laughing matter.
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