Facing harsh bipartisan criticism, Colorado lawmakers who wanted to ban guns from a long list of “sensitive places” reconsidered that constitutionally dubious plan. The original version of Senate Bill 24-131, introduced Feb. 7, would have made it a crime to carry firearms in more than two dozen types of public places, including parks, playgrounds, recreational facilities, zoos, museums , libraries, “public gatherings[s],” medical facilities, banks, stadiums, amusement parks, bars, pot shops, college campuses and places of worship. The new version, unveiled this week, applies only to schools, polling places and some government buildings.
The amended bill also narrows the scope of firearms restrictions by allowing carry permit holders to possess firearms in “parking areas” adjacent to “sensitive locations.” According to the previous version, firearms would only be allowed in those parking lots if they were “stored in locked containers in vehicles.” That requirement would have had a far-reaching effect, banning firearms from the parking areas of any mall or shopping center that included a “sensitive location” such as a bar or bank branch.
What happened? “The changes were made by the Senate Judiciary Committee, largely in response to concerns from Senator Dylan Roberts, a Democrat,” Colorado Public Radio (CPR) reports. “He said the new version of the bill will have a stronger legal standing, even after the U.S. Supreme Court undermined the foundations of many gun laws in its 2022 Bruen decision.”
In New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Court held that states cannot require residents to demonstrate a “special need” before allowing them to carry guns in public for self-defense. The decision also established a test to determine whether a gun control law is constitutional: it must be “consistent with this nation’s historic tradition of firearms regulation.”
Roberts’ concern that the restrictions imposed by SB 24-131 would not meet that test was well founded. After The bridge, legislators in states that needed to change carry permit requirements were alarmed that residents would begin to exercise their right to bear arms. So they made carry permits easier to get but much harder to use, creating long lists of places where guns were not allowed. Federal judges in California, Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey and New York have found at least some of these restrictions unconstitutional under The bridge.
Even the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which upheld many of New York’s “sensitive places” restrictions in December, rejected the state’s rule against firearms in all businesses open to the public unless the owner posts “clear and conspicuous signage” allowing them to or “has otherwise given express consent.” And a similar California law is pending while the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit reviews the preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney in December. Oral arguments in that case, Carralero v. Goodnessare scheduled for April 11th.
Despite all these warning signs, State Senator Sonya Jaquez Lewis (D-Longmont), who introduced the bill in her chamber alongside Senator Chris Kolker (D-Centennial), insisted that Colorado did not see wait to see the final results of the litigation. Carralero “It might take another year or two” to resolve it, he said, and “we didn’t want to wait two years, because we know how many incidents of gun violence happen in Colorado in a year: too many.”
This argument was puzzling for two reasons. First, Jaquez Lewis knew that his bill was sure to provoke constitutional challenges, meaning it likely wouldn’t go into effect anytime soon, if ever. Second, his claim that SB 24-131 would reduce “incidents of gun violence” was completely implausible, given that neither mass murderers nor other violent criminals are known for their meticulousness in following the law. The bill’s impact would be limited to law-abiding gun owners, those who go through the hoops necessary to obtain a carry permit. As David Kopel, a gun policy expert at the Independence Institute of Colorado, noted in written testimony against SB 24-131, carry permit holders “are much more law-abiding than the general population.” .
The amended bill, which Roberts calls “very limited” and “very customized,” defines “sensitive places” in a way designed to coincide with what the Supreme Court has said on the topic. In the historical case of 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court suggested that laws “prohibiting the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings” are presumptively constitutional. The Court reiterated this point two years later McDonald v. Chicago. In The bridge, noted that “the historical record provides relatively few 18th- and 19th-century ‘sensitive locations’ where weapons were prohibited altogether,” citing “legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses” as examples. She found no historical evidence of “disputes regarding the legality of such bans.”
Given these references to “sensitive locations,” the narrower version of SB 24-131 is more likely to pass muster in the courts. But it doesn’t seem to achieve much.
The biggest news concerns the provision regarding schools. As it currently stands in Colorado, concealed carry is often restricted in K-12 schools and permitted with some exceptions on state college campuses. The bill would replace those policies with a uniform ban that would apply to colleges and K-12 schools, whether public or private. By banning armed self-defense on college campuses, Kopel fears, such a provision will make them “safe spaces for rapists and other violent criminals.”
Concealed carry is already banned “inside the Capitol” under a law that applies to buildings subject to security checks. SB 24-131 makes this prohibition more specific. Covers “the chambers, galleries, or offices of the General Assembly”; the locations of legislative hearings or meetings; and the offices of any “member, officer or employee” of the General Assembly.
Courts also already ban firearms. The bill would replace those district court rules with a statutory ban.
Likewise, firearms are often prohibited in local government buildings. The bill would establish a default rule that firearms are not allowed in those buildings “unless permitted by a local government” under “an ordinance, regulation, or other law.”
And the polling stations? “Existing law prohibits openly carrying a firearm within any polling place or central counting facility, or within 100 feet of a ballot drop box or any building in which a polling place or central counting facility is located , during an election or any other related election administration activity is occurring,” the bill summary reads. “The bill prohibits carrying firearms in any manner into those locations.”
Despite the bill’s limited scope, its sponsors continue to promise it will improve public safety. “The presence of firearms, which often turns minor disputes into deadly encounters, has left an indelible mark on our communities,” Kolker said during a committee hearing. “This risk increases when firearms are introduced into environments where our children learn and play, leading to the possibility of missed shots or accidental discharges.”
How often are children killed by weapons that permit holders carry into schools? Perhaps never, since Kolker cited no examples to support the fear of him. But from 2016 to 2021, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reports, 43 people of all ages died from unintentional gunshot wounds across all settings in the state. Five of these accidental deaths (one per year) involved “children under the age of 9”. Such incidents typically happen at home.
How often do carry permit holders find themselves involved in “minor disputes” that result in gunfire? Not much, judging by the data on permit revocations. “According to the Denver Police Department, there are approximately 10,792 active concealed carry permits in Denver.” Westword reported in 2022. “There was one permit revocation in Denver in 2020, in the ‘mental illness or addiction’ category.” Based on state-level data, Kopel calculated that permit holders are “39 times less likely to be arrested than someone without a permit carrying the permit.”
That reality was good reason to doubt that even the broad restrictions contemplated in the original version of SB 24-131 would measurably improve public safety. Now that the bill has been reduced to a few largely redundant prohibitions, its supporters’ promises seem even more fanciful.