Colorado Senate committee advances bill to regulate gun barrels

DENVER (CN) — On a 3-2 vote along party lines, the Colorado Senate Committee on State, Veterans and Military Affairs advanced a bill Thursday aiming to regulate the sale of gun barrels.

“This bill will require that a firearm barrel be sold or transferred in person by a federally licensed firearm dealer,” said state Senator Tom Sullivan, a sponsor of the bill titled Record Keeping & Regulation of Sale of Firearm Barrel.

Because it’s difficult to 3D print gun barrels, Sullivan said many people purchase barrels online to attach to other 3D printed gun components, leaving a loophole two years after the General Assembly passed a law requiring ghost guns to be registered with the state.

A Democrat from Aurora, Sullivan has been a vocal champion of gun restrictions since the death of his son Alex in the Aurora Theater Shooting on July 20, 2012, in which a dozen people were murdered. Before addressing the committee, Sullivan said he read through hateful emails sent from people opposing his bill.

Sullivan shared an email from a Grand Junction woman who wrote to call him a “sad man,” demanding he “free Tina Peters” and “quit using your dead son as an overreach on gun control.”

Despite the vitriol, Sullivan said the law encourages people to purchase gun parts from licensed dealers and local businesses, while addressing the growing use of ghost guns in crimes. Ghost guns now make up about 3% of firearms confiscated from crime scenes, a number Sullivan worried will only grow.

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 suicides.

In recent years, the Democrat-stacked statehouse has taken aim at gun violence through laws raising the age to purchase a firearm to 21, imposing a three-day waiting period before acquiring a new gun and requiring serial numbers for ghost guns.  

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.

Mark Harris, board member of Ceasefire Colorado, spoke in support of the bill, citing the November 2022 mass shooting at Club Q, in which five people were murdered at the Colorado Springs nightclub.

“The Club Q shooter used 3D printers heavily in his preparation for that event,” Harris recalled.

“There is a specific remaining problem for folks who want to use 3D printing; they will go online and purchase a barrel from a non-federally licensed dealer,” Harris said. “This bill specifically addresses that loophole.”

Over the course of the three-hour hearing, dozens of critics spoke against the bill, questioning the mechanisms of enforcement and gun shops’ ability to maintain the required list of purchasers. Many opponents testified against what they perceive as a slow dwindling of their Second Amendment rights.

“If they start regulating every single component of the gun, they can ban every single component of your gun,” testified Ian Escalante, executive director for the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, a nonprofit leading court challenges against several of Colorado's new gun laws.

“Time and time again, we see this legislative body flirt with creating a gun registry, and this creates a registry, a list of your personal information to be held by the firearms dealer for five years, presumably to be accessed by law enforcement,” Escalante said.

Several opponents of the Colorado bill drew parallels to a recent California law that also targeted gun barrels, raising concern that the bill does little to distinguish between a gun barrel and a piece of pipe from the hardware store.

“This bill is too broad," said state Senator Rod Pelton, a Republican who represents Colorado Springs. "This bill is unenforceable. This bill is an unfunded mandate to our counties and to our small business owners. I am going to vote no on this bill because it is the right thing to do.”

Next week, legislative committees are scheduled to hear further restrictions on the 3D printing of gun parts, along with a Republican-backed bill aiming to reverse recent reforms, including eliminating the office of Gun Violence Prevention, lifting restrictions on carrying firearms at polling centers and removing last year’s “rapid-fire device as a dangerous weapon” classification.

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