With the Colorado Legislature taking another run at defining and banning “assault weapons” across that state, hundreds of gun rights supporters showed up at the Colorado Capitol on Tuesday to protest and testify against the bill.
Wyomingites shouldn’t take for granted that such a ban won’t be attempted here someday, local gun rights advocates said.
“Colorado is a cautionary tale for every gun owner, including here in Wyoming, because nobody thought they could pass that (ban) in Colorado 10 years ago, and yet here they are,” Aaron Dorr, policy director for Wyoming Gun Owners, told Cowboy State Daily.
Gun Owners of America spokesman Mark Jones of Buffalo said Cowboy State residents must be cautious about crossing the state line.
“Wyoming residents need to check the outcome of the current Colorado legislative session before traveling with firearms to that neighbor,” he told Cowboy State Daily.
Hundreds Show At Capitol
Some Coloradans pushed back against the proposed ban Tuesday, Dudley Brown of Fort Collins told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday afternoon.
Roughly 400 people showed up for a pro-gun rights rally outside the Capitol that morning, said Brown, who is the president of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners/National Association For Gun Rights.
Speakers included YouTube gun channel celebrity Brandon Herrera, Brown said. And people later crowded into the Capitol to testify on the bill before the Colorado House Judiciary Committee.
“At one point, they had 577 people singed up to testify,” Brown said. “And I know there were a lot of people who couldn’t get signed up to testify, or there would have been over 1,000.”
As it was, the hearing was expected to drag on for hours, possibly into early Wednesday morning, he said.
His group also attempted to deliver petitions with more than 200,000 signatures against the bill to the committee, Brown said.
“We always deliver our petitions by hand,” he said. “We tried to deliver those to the committee, and they wouldn’t take them.”
Bill Proposes Sweeping Bans
Brown is no stranger to Wyoming. He was born in Gillette.
He also helped draft and promote a 2011 bill to implement constitutional carry in Wyoming, meaning that guns may be carried openly or concealed without a permit.
During a phone call with Cowboy State Daily, he described seeing something that reminded him of Wyoming.
“A large Ford pickup with Wyoming plates just passed me, and it had a lot of gun stickers — stickers just covering the back window,” he said. “Yep, those are my people.”
It wasn’t that long ago that Colorado had firearms policies similar to Wyoming’s, Brown said. But that began to change in the wake of mass shootings in Colorado. A high-capacity magazine ban was attempted in 2013. And an assault-weapons ban bill was introduced last year, but died in committee.
The Colorado Legislature is now considering House Bill 24-1292.
It proposes sweeping bans, not only on semi-automatic rifles, Brown said. Other firearms, such as pistols with detachable magazines and threaded barrels, would also be banned under the measure.
If the bill is passed, the penalties for having such firearms would be stiff, he said, with fines of up to $250,000.
So Wyomingites might have to watch themselves if they travel south, he said.
“Maybe my friends aren’t normal, but everybody I know in Wyoming has an AR-15 stuffed under the seat of their pickup, or behind the seat, or in the back of their SUV,” he said. “And people might think, ‘Oh, I just have a pistol in my vehicle,’ but this law would ban a lot of those too.”
Taking firearms into Colorado is already dicey, Jones said.
“The state already repealed their preemption statutes last year, and this currently allows for local gun control,” Jones said. “A Wyoming resident needs to be aware of last year's news and couple it with whatever happens this session. One needs to be very careful not to run afoul of Colorado gun control laws.”
‘They Want Us To Move’
Brown said it’s probably too early to speculate whether HB 24-1292 will pass. But if it does, his group is ready to file a lawsuit against it, as it already has against local gun bans, such as in Boulder, Colorado.
“We will file a lawsuit before the governor’s pen lifts off the paper,” he said.
He said a common strategy among gun control advocates in Colorado is to pass whatever restrictions they can, even if the measures later get dragged into expensive legislation.
Colorado’s political climate is becoming increasingly anti-gun, and pushing many residents north, Brown said.
“They want us to move. They want gun owners in Colorado to move out of the state,” he said. “I think you’re already seeing an influx. There’s a lot of Colorado gun people moving into Cheyenne. The people who want to move because of the politics of Colorado are probably a better fit for Wyoming anyway.”
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
