Colorado committee advances ban on 3D printing firearms

DENVER (CN) — Colorado's House Judiciary Committee advanced a bill on Wednesday aiming to criminalize 3D printing guns.

Sponsored by Democrats in both chambers, the Prohibit Three-Dimensional Printing Firearms & Components bill, HB26-1144, passed out of the committee on a 7-4 vote along party lines. The bill would make possession of prohibited 3D printed parts or plans a class one misdemeanor, with subsequent violations a class five felony.

A law passed in 2024 requires 3D printed frames and receivers to be serialized and made by licensed manufacturers. The 10th Circuit is currently reviewing a federal judge’s decision to deny an injunction in a challenge to the law led by the National Association for Gun Rights.

“Existing law doesn’t have firearms in particular, which this bill accomplishes,” explained the bill’s sponsor, Representative Andrew Boensenecker, a Democrat who represents Fort Collins.

Because existing law only addresses critical gun parts, Boensenecker argued that an all-out ban on 3D printing firearms is necessary to prevent novel designs from being printed to evade existing law.

Representative Ava Flanell, a Republican who represents Colorado Springs, said she found the bill puzzling and duplicative.

“It seems like this law already exists,” Flanell said.

In public testimony, several critics questioned whether the ban on “digital instructions” would affect cosplayers and airsoft gun players who 3D print props, or criminalize users of video games that operate with “digital instructions.” In closing, Committee Chair Javier Mabrey, a Democrat who represents Denver, requested amendments to clarify the bill's language and avoid unintended consequences.

"You can't make things doubly illegal or super-duper illegal," said Daniel Fenlason, director of operations for the Colorado Shooting Sports Association. “This is going to be a lawsuit that our team at CSSA will explore. It will cost the taxpayers millions of dollars and you will lose at the Supreme Court.”

Since 2014, Colorado has experienced 89 mass shootings with 122 killed and 400 injured. On average, the Centennial State loses 1,000 people every year to guns, about two-thirds of which are deaths by suicide.

In recent years, the Democrat-stacked statehouse has taken aim at gun violence through laws raising the age to purchase a firearm to 21 and imposing a three-day waiting period before acquiring a new gun. Gun rights advocates have fired back in court, making Colorado a testing ground following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen.

Last year, legislators also increased the age to purchase ammunition to 21, tightened gun show sales and hinged obtaining firearms with detachable magazines on passing a safety class.

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill requiring gun barrel sales to be conducted in person — another measure written to limit 3D printed firearms.

As some Colorado lawmakers have dreamed of legislating away gun violence, a faction of gun owners has grown increasingly frustrated with what they see as an attack on their Second Amendment right to bear arms.

On Tuesday, Castle Rock Representative Brandi Bradley brought HB26-1021, also known as the Second Amendment Protection Act, before the same committee, asking to repeal more than a dozen gun control bills passed over the last five years. Among the rollbacks, the bill would have eliminated the state Office of Gun Violence Prevention, safe storage requirements and open carry bans at election centers. Proponents pointed out that cutting the programs would save the state $22 million annually.

"For more than 15 years, the Colorado legislature has waged a war on our Second Amendment rights on the false pretense of public safety,” Bradley said. “We need to stop disarming law abiding citizens.”

Though the bill failed on a 7-4 vote, Denver Democrat Jennifer Bacon took the opportunity to engage people in conversation about firearm responsibility and violence. Bacon declined to wholesale repeal many of the bills she had sponsored, but said she was open to revising several should Bradley bring forward a narrowed proposal.  

"I hope that's what comes out of here, is that we can have these conversations," Bacon said.

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